


The Old Winter Soldiers

by Irony_Rocks



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Marvel Cinematic Universe Fusion, Alternate Universe - The Old Guard (Movie 2020) Fusion, Angst, BAMF Peggy Carter, Bisexual Peggy Carter, F/F, F/M, Frustrated Steve Rogers, Immortal Warriors, M/M, Minor Jane Foster/Thor, Mutual Pining, OTP: true, Past Peggy Carter/Daniel Sousa - Freeform, Smut, The Old Guard AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:40:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 16
Words: 78,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25431769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Irony_Rocks/pseuds/Irony_Rocks
Summary: The Old Guard/Captain Americafusion AU. They became a team of immortal warriors, fighting for what they believed was right. Steve was originally slain in 1280 AD, losing a fight to a bully in a back alley. It took him nearly sixteen years after that to discover answers into who he was or what he could do. It was nearly three hundred years later that he dreamt of Bucky (Bastian Barnabas), first resurrected in 1523 during the German Peasant Wars. Then Natasha (Natalia Romanoff) in Russia 1642. There had been one born before – Dugan, but he had died, actuallydied, in 1812, at the age of 247 years old, spitting up blood from a wound that should have healed, but didn’t. Sam (Samuel Willelm) had joined them around the same time Dugan passed away, as if there was always a need for balance, as if fate had a sense of equilibrium.But Peggy was older than Steve, older than all of them put together, a history that spanned millennia. And he hadn’t seen her in nearly seventy years, and she didn’t want to be found.But Steve was done waiting.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Natasha Romanov, Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers, Riley/Sam Wilson, past Peggy Carter/Dottie Underwood
Comments: 334
Kudos: 253





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [beautifulwhensarcastic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/beautifulwhensarcastic/gifts).



> Spoilers for the premise of “The Old Guard,” but none really for the movie. You do not need to be familiar with "The Old Guard" movie to read this fic, as it will hopefully be self-explanatory on the premise. 
> 
> Inspired by [this amazing gifset](https://formerlyir.tumblr.com/post/624290483233046528/formerlyir-beautifulwhensarcastic-unable-to) by Beautifulwhensarcastic. I had asked her if I could write up something over on tumblr based on her gorgeous stuff, and she recommended this one. Then I watched “The Old Guard,” and the two premises merged into one fic.
> 
> ETA: Also, SteveRogersCanYouNot made an [awesome playlist full of amazing songs for this fic](https://steverogerscanyounot.tumblr.com/post/637061894393462784/so-i-became-emotionally-invested-in-formerlyirs). Seriously, the song selection is impressive! Think about giving it a whirl?

#

When he first approached Steve Rogers, Fury tried to think of him as just another experienced military man: world weary, smart, forceful, feigning a rough exterior but really just exhausted, wrapping himself up in duty and battles just to keep from curling up in a fetal position. The stoic stance, the muscles, the no-nonsense haircut and downright curt attitude, it was all perfectly defined in the PTSD textbook of military men. Fury wasn't going to knock the stereotype; god knows it had gotten him enough recruits already. But he wasn’t looking for just any recruit, especially not one selected from one of the nastiest supermax prisons that Shield maintained. 

The guards all recognized Fury, even though he’d hardly ever set foot on Seagate Prison. It was nearly a three-hour flight from New York, but Fury had cleared out the entire day to make sure he had enough time to speak with Rogers. That was something he learned from good ol’ granddad. Be punctual, be well-mannered – and carry a loaded gun at all times. Granddad liked people plenty. He just didn’t trust them much.

The moment Steve Roger’s sentence was handed down – twenty-five to life, good as a death sentence – Fury had figured the man would break out within six months, ten tops. Roger’s lawyer didn’t attempt an appeal, and the feds had been crowing from the rooftops at the victory. There was no way, given Roger’s reputation, that a prison would hold him for long. Fury had bet money on it, in fact, with Coulson. A bet he lost, because Fury would check in, wait and see when the news of a prison break would reach his ears. None ever came, month after month, until it was year after year. Now, Rogers had been in Seagate Prison for nearly three years. 

To look at him, though, one couldn’t really see the toll those years had taken on him.

Roger’s team wasn’t as quiet, unfortunately. The Winter Soldiers. _Terrorists_ , some called them. Fury tended to look at things from many angles, though. One man’s terrorist was another man’s liberator. And now, after years of suspecting, after years of hearing whispers and collecting covert information, Fury knew he needed this man’s skills, this man’s ineffable reputation. 

“First,” Fury began, “let me say that this conversation isn’t taking place. It’s not happening, and no one will ever acknowledge otherwise.”

Steve sighed a little, shaking his head. “So, this is one of those conversations, is it?”

“Your buddies have crossed the line,” Fury intoned, holding a file up for Rogers to take. But Rogers didn’t take the file. The man was sweat soaked, but not winded, unwrapping his hands as several piles of punching bags lay behind him in discarded waste. Fury dropped the file onto the bench, continuing, “Seven attacks on government institutions around the globe in the last three months.”

“Yeah, my heart bleeds for you,” Steve returned, flatly.

“Luckily for you,” Fury replied, “I’m not here to threaten.”

“You can’t really threaten a man that’s serving decades in prison.”

“True. You could die here an old man.”

Steve shook his head, like he was privy to an old joke. “Why are you here?”

“Call it curiosity,” Fury said. “Your story has never made sense, never added up.”

Curiosity finally got the better of Rogers too, who picked up the fallen file to flip through, finding a litany of his friend’s exploits. Bucky Barnes, Natasha Romanoff and Sam Wilson, three lethal criminals that had been running amuck these last few years, a thorn in Shield’s sides. Except, of course, Fury knew better now. He knew the strategic points the Winter Soldiers hit were aimed more at the nefarious underbelly of Shield, at the cancerous cell inside that Fury refused to name out loud. _HYDRA_. The Winter Soldiers were doing more good than bad, and Fury was one of the few that had begun to appreciate this concept.

Which was why Fury was here, now, talking to a man whose history and crimes were bloody and messy, and only told a portion of the real story. 

“What if I told you I could cut your time short?” Fury replied. “What if I told you I could help your buddies avoid joining you in this hellhole?”

“I’d say, what’s the catch?”

“You keep doing what your team has been doing,” Fury replied, “but for me, under _my_ orders.”

Steve’s lips pressed into a thin line. “You’re the head of a covert espionage organization. You’ve got hundreds of agents you could select and order around. Why do you need my team?”

“Because your team is gifted in a way I still can’t define,” Fury replied. “Or are you going to deny there’s something special about the Winter Soldiers?”

Steve didn’t deny it, of course. He didn’t acknowledge it, either. He knew Roger’s reputation, even some of the fantastic parts, the parts entirely unbelievable. Rogers and his team were more than just capable. They were more than just dangerous. They could go into any mission, any enemy territory, and no matter how bad the odds were, no matter how guaranteed it was to be a suicide mission, they’d walk away. They’d walk away, unscathed. 

“We can talk terms in a moment,” Steve said, clearly realizing what was happening. He was a smart man; he knew what Fury was saying – and _not_ saying. “But you want me to cooperate, I have one condition. Peggy Carter. I want to work with her.”

Fury hadn’t been expecting that. “How do you know of her?”  


“I have my sources. She impressed me when she flipped you all off.”

“She’s only been in custody for a few weeks.”

Steve nodded. “And now I’m saying release her, if you want my help.”

Fury waited a beat, deliberating. “I can’t guarantee anything.”

“Figured as much,” Steve replied, lightly, “considering this conversation isn’t even happening.”

#

Later on, in the car ride back to HQ, Fury contacted Maria Hill. “What’s their affiliation?”

“There’s nothing,” Maria answered. “They never crossed paths. Not on our radars.”

“I don’t have time for this shit. Keep them heavily guarded. If Carter is somehow connected to the Winter Soldiers, I need to know how and when.”

Christ. Margaret “Peggy” Carter didn’t factor into this, as far as Fury had known. She was a rogue Shield agent, one recently imprisoned too, but for crimes far different than Steve Rogers. Her treachery and betrayal had hurt, too, in a personal way that Fury refused to acknowledge aloud. She’d killed agents the prior month – good men. Ward and Thompson.

“We have her complete file,” Hill insisted, still digging deep in the computer database. “Dating back decades. British Special Forces, MI5 operative and then an agent within Shield. There’s nothing here that ties her to the Winter Soldiers. No overlapping missions, no geographic footprint that corresponds.” There was a long pause. “You’re not seriously thinking about releasing her, sir?” 

“I’m more than thinking about it,” Fury said. “I’m heavily inclined to do it.”

“Coulson is going to blow a fuse,” Hill said. “You know his team hasn’t recovered from Ward—”

“He’ll have to get over it,” Fury replied. “We’re all making deals with the devil right now, in a bargain to save us from hell. He’ll have to live with it.”

“Yes, sir,” Hill said, in a tone that wasn’t insubordination, of course, but flirted with it. “I’ll keep looking for overlap in Carter’s files. Anything else?”

“Yeah,” Fury sighed. “Call in Coulson’s team from the field. If we’re going to risk releasing Carter, I want him babysitting her.”

“Yes, sir.”

#

Predictably, Fury couldn’t avoid the confrontation with Coulson.

“Sir, I have to protest,” Coulson said, hands folded in front of him, body radiating dissent with a straight-lined back. “Carter is as dangerous as they come. She’s—”

“I’m well aware of your opinion on the matter,” Fury returned. “I’m not inclined to disagree, either. But we need Roger’s cooperation.”

“I understand the strategic value of using an outside team, even if I’m not sure that we should be trusting a group as illusive and violent as the Winter Soldiers—”

“I don’t trust,” Fury replied. “I use assets to the best of their abilities, and even you have to admit there is no one better than them.”

“Even so, unlike them, Carter is a known element. We shouldn’t—”

Fury raised a hand to stall any further protests. “I have a temporary solution to our problem. I don’t know what their connection is, and I don’t like not knowing answers. Get Carter ready for transport. We’ll transfer both her and Rogers to the same facility. Monitor their interaction. Maybe it’ll clarify their association. Everything Hill dug up on their past shows nothing of relevance.”

“She’s a trained liar,” Coulson reminded him. “I’ve been putting feelers out, and the more I dig up, the more I’m sure her entire family background is fabricated.” 

Fury sighed. “I understand your hesitation. You two were close, went up the Shield ranks side by side. You had nearly as many ops with her as you did with Agent May. But I need you to be objective about this. I need your full report on her interaction with Rogers. I want to know their history. Can I rely on you for that, Agent?”

“Yes, sir. You can always rely on me.” Coulson paused. “Just remember my objections when this hits the fan.”

“You planning on telling me _I told you so_?”

“Of course not, Sir. I’d take no pleasure in that.”

“Right.” Fury held back a smile. “Dismissed.”

#

Coulson felt impotent resentment brewing in his chest. He shouldn’t be doing this because everything about it felt wrong. Skye still hadn’t stopped looking devastated over Ward; the team was still stinging from grief and misery. Coulson could easily think of a dozen ways this would all go south, and that was before he added in Fury’s new favorite pet project – Steve Rogers.

Coulson could easily admit that he didn’t always see the bigger picture the way Fury did; it wasn’t that rare that Fury took measures that, to outsiders, held more risk than reward. But the Winter Soldiers – they were murderers, plain and simple. They had a higher kill count that most military battalions. He knew the Fed charges brought against Rogers were probably just a drop in the bucket of the things the man had done. They were playing with fire. 

He walked to the end of the hall and nodded at the guard to open the cell door. Inside, in a darkened room, Margaret “Peggy” Carter sat, fingers intertwined with the mesh of the holding cell. She stood when Coulson walked in, that unfamiliar cold mask falling across her face. 

He’d known this woman for years, and he hardly knew her at all.

“Director Fury granted you amnesty,” Coulson greeted without preamble, then added, pointedly, “ _Temporarily._ If it were up to me, you’d never leave, Carter. We might not have proof, but I know it was you. You killed Ward and Thompson.”

“Oh, did I?” Peggy replied, archly. “And I suppose a confession would help clear away the cobwebs of confusion. Did I do it for money? Did I do it for revenge? Maybe Ward rebuffed an advance of mine, and I simply couldn’t abide.”

“Cut the games, Carter. I don’t know how you pulled it off, but your mercenary friends are going to bat for you. Some friends you’ve chosen to keep.” Speaking as one she’d betrayed.

Peggy was quiet for a beat. “Mercenary friends?”

“Steve Rogers,” Coulson answered.

She didn’t do anything as obscene as freeze, or inhale sharply, and even bat an eye. But there was a response, a collection of more subtle things, micro-expressions that passed between beats. She was caught off guard.

“How do you know him?” Coulson pressed, looking to wound. “Ally? Friend?... _Lover_?”

Peggy smiled. "To you, I suppose that’s the only thing that makes sense. I’m the beastly criminal left on your doorstep to be minded. The friend turned enemy. The girl next door transformed into some murderess traitor. My, what you must think of me now."

“Less and less, each passing day.”

Peggy’s smile was strained. “I’m glad you came, Coulson. I do so love our daily chats.”

#

Steve hated the wait, after Fury’s visit. Everything seemed to move so slow in Seagate, especially when he had solitary confinement. Of course, most of the time they didn’t even call it that. _Suicide watch_ was the preferred term, as if he would or could kill himself. But he had to wait while things were set in motion, and he knew that singular visit with Fury would certainly put plenty of things into action.

When he was little, his mother had warned him against fighting bigger men – or it’d land him in trouble. Steve was certain a supermax prison wasn’t remotely what she’d meant, because the thought of her sweet little boy ending up in such a frightening and unfamiliar place could never cross her mind. But, of course, Steve hadn't understood his fate either, not then, not even vaguely; he didn't know there were people who wanted to hurt others just for the fun of it, others who did it for money, people who would murder without a second thought. His mother tried to convince him it was better to stay out of the fights, especially because he’d been so little as a child, so unabashedly small. He was constantly sick. 

Not surprisingly, of course. After all, he’d grown up during the Dark Ages.

"The collar around your neck is equipped with a tracking device,” Coulson warned, “so that I can monitor your location at all times. And if you attempt to move the beacon or break even one link in the chain, you will be injected with a neurotoxin which will kill you in thirty-five excruciatingly painful seconds.”

Steve didn’t reply. He just nodded.

Despite his reputation, and a long history of wars, Steve didn’t like hurting people. Never had. There wasn’t anything satisfying about the crunch of someone’s bones beneath his fists, even though he always knew the exact force necessary every time to acquire that _crack_. He didn’t need to prove to anyone how strong he was; he didn’t need to be feared. But if there was one thing Steve Roger had been and would always be – in all his nearly 800 years of life – was a guy who’d never stood by while some bully attacked helpless victims. Whether it be on the battlefield or in some back-alley bar. Steve Rogers didn’t abide bullies.

It was how he first died, of course, in 1280 AD.

It was how she first discovered him, too, sixteen years later, walking in on him getting beat up in some tavern in Damascus. He’d been bleeding on the floor, not yet healed from the knife-wound on his side, about to taunt his would-be murderers that he ' _could do this all day_ ,' a line that was born of horrible truths because he would never give up, could never give up, but then she’d pulled out a scythe of her own, swinging graceful arcs of blood until he’d been the only one left alive in the room other than her.

_“Who are you?” he breathed, because he recognized her from his dreams. Sixteen years of dreams – her face, her hands, her cries. “I know you,” he said._

_“Petronia of Carthage,” she greeted, holding out a hand for him to take._

Peggy.

He hadn’t seen her in nearly seventy years now, since World War II. She’d asked for space, though. Asked for time. And because they were immortals, Steve gave it to her – but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt. That didn’t mean he didn’t want to reach for her like the first breath taken after dying.

He’d kept track, of course, knew more or less what she’d done, decade to decade. It wasn’t until a few years back that he found out she’d infiltrated another government agency, this time Shield. Things got more complicated, of course, when he discovered rumblings about HYDRA.

Things always got more complicated with them.

“Don’t move unless we tell you to,” Coulson warned, as he loaded Steve in the van. Steve waited as they shackled him to one bench, fairly immobile. “Behave, or your friend won’t be joining us.”

Steve froze, a reaction that he knew Coulson noticed. Steve couldn’t help it. It was beyond his control. A ‘friend’ could only mean one person in this situation, and while he was nearly 800 years old, nearly all of it he’d spent in love with only one woman. Even after seventy years apart, it was hard to think about Peggy and not feel the rush of excitement, of eagerness at seeing her face after so long of only dreaming about it. 

At the same time, the memory of the last time he’d seen her evoked a harsh exhale. He remembered Peggy’s shaken ragged breath, her blood and tear-stained face as they stood over the lifeless body of their twelve-year-old daughter, Sarah. Peggy’s quiet _I’m so exhausted_ confession had been borne of experiencing too much death from all sides. When she’d kissed him later that night, he knew something was different. He knew something had changed in her – broken her. 

And then… silence. Absence. For seventy years.

When Steve had first taken her hand in that Damascus tavern, he had never planned on letting go. He didn’t let go through the Crusades. He didn’t let go through the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire. He didn’t let go through the Mongol invasions of Eurasia. Or the Suleiman Campaign through the Ottomans, or the French Revolution, or the first World War. But theirs was a story played out with swords and then bullets; immortal soldiers defined by conflict. 

Of course, their company included more – before Steve, there had been another, a woman that Peggy had only referred to by an affectionate nickname, Dottie. She’d disappeared into the wind a great number of years before Peggy had stumbled upon Steve. After that, their group grew – first Bucky (Bastian Barnabas) in 1523, in the German Peasant Wars. Then Natasha (Natalia Romanoff) in Russia 1642. There had been one other – Dugan, but he died in 1812, actually _died_ , spitting up blood from a wound that should have healed, but didn’t. He’d reached his end, somehow, some indefinable marker that had been called back in. Sam Wilson (Samuel Willelm) had joined them around the same time Dugan died, as if there was always a need for balance, as if fate had some sense of equilibrium.

They had become a team of immortal warriors, fighting for what they believed was right, but Peggy was older than Steve, older than all of them put together, a history that spanned millennia. 

Peggy hadn’t asked to be found, though. She hadn’t asked to be reunited with Steve. He wasn’t sure of what reception he’d get, suddenly thrust back in each other’s lives. He’d hoped she’d used the time to get what she’d needed. He had hoped she’d gotten the rest she’d wanted. But when he’d found out she had placed herself within the Shield organization as a spy, he knew she’d fallen back into old patterns. He hadn’t been surprised. Hurt, yes, that she could seek out her old ways but not him. Hurt, but… he understood. 

Unfortunately, Steve’s hands had been forced when he’d heard she’d been captured recently. Nat had told him, via coded correspondence that even Shield hadn’t decrypted or noticed in the newspapers. He wasn’t worried that Peggy couldn’t handle herself; he was sure she could, but he wasn’t entirely sure she had the full picture of the threat before her. HYDRA had done more than just infiltrate Shield. They had infected the world, and the time for half-measures and a broken team needed to be over.

At that moment, the van door slid fully open with a bang. And then suddenly, there she was, with the same neurotoxin collar, hair upswept in a sleek ponytail, entirely no-nonsense, orange jumpsuit and face freshly scrubbed clean of the barest hints of makeup. He could see her freckles, a constellation he knew better than the stars. He could see her lips, pink and parted, as she braced herself with a breath, climbed on board, eyes locked on his.

They didn’t say anything. Coulson was watching them rather intently. 

They shackled her to the floor, on the opposite bench, and for a long moment Steve and Peggy just stared at each other. He should say something, and even if he’d thought about this moment a million times, he suddenly drew a blank. It was probably for the best since they had company, but he was just as sure that Coulson was reading more from Steve’s face than anything he could give away by words. Even Peggy, always one to keep her mask firmly in place, was letting herself slip, eyes staring fixatedly on Steve with a battering of emotions.

The vans started to move, a long line of them, down the road. Peggy and Steve were in the middle van of a fleet of three.

“Such a big convoy just for the two of us,” she finally managed, a flirtatious edge to it. A cover. “Wouldn’t it be a pity if something happened?”

He knew the words were meant more to rattle their chaperone, and it worked. “Enough of that,” Coulson said. “You’re not going anywhere except the hole Shield wants to put you in.”

But Steve knew what was going to happen next, and it was all going down as if they’d planned it together. Peggy had picked up exactly where they left off, sure-footed and quick, already having broken her thumb, dislodging the bone so that she could slip off her cuffs. 

In the distance, Steve saw Bucky standing in the middle of the road, in direct sight of the convoy. He fired off a disc-shaped explosive charge at the frontline van, which went under the vehicle and magnetically stuck to the underbelly. A moment later, the explosion vaulted the van into the air, rocking it back down to the road in a massive crash. 

Chaos broke out, and Peggy and Steve reacted simultaneously. He ripped the cuffs off himself by sheer force, a strength afforded to only him, another gift of immortality. Peggy didn’t have the same force, but the women were faster, more agile – Peggy and Natasha could run circles around him. While he was busy taking out the guards in the van, Peggy had already disarmed Coulson and moved to threaten the driver into stopping the van.

“You’re only proving your guilt by running,” Coulson said.

The fleet of vehicles came to a stop, and Peggy turned around. “I know you don’t believe me. You have no reason to, Coulson, but I am not the enemy here.” And then she knocked him unconscious.

By this time, Bucky had made quick work of disabling the other vans in the fleet, a flaming wreckage that would likely attract authorities within minutes.

“Peg, let’s move,” Steve announced. 

They both took the weapons left behind by the unconscious guards, and jumped out of the van, a quick two-person defense line. Immediately, they took on fire, a barrage of bullets that hit the backend of the van. Steve instinctively hauled Peggy to the side, sheltering her smaller frame with his larger one, bracing her against the van door. At least two bullets struck his back. 

Peggy yanked him further off to the side, using the cover of the open door to shield them. She looked over at Steve, exasperated. “I heal the same as you,” she told him.

“Sorry,” Steve said, not sorry at all.

In the meantime, they were taking fire from all sides, and up from a nearby rooftop, someone – Steve knew it was Sam – was providing cover, a series of sniper shots giving them a clear line of path to an escape vehicle the team must have left open and running for them. Steve exchanged a look with Peggy, strategizing the line of escape without words, and they made their dash.

“You all right?” Peggy asked, when she was behind the wheel.

The bullet wounds were already healing, muscles regenerating, expelling the bullets from his body. “Yeah,” he managed, as they sped down the road. Steve threw open the back door of the car as it raced down the highway, and Bucky was still laying down suppressive fire a few hundred yards ahead of them. When the car went by him, Bucky dove through the open door even as it moved at breakneck speed. 

“Hey, boss,” Bucky yelled with a laugh, to Peggy. “Long time, no see. Turn the corner. Nat has a safehouse just out of the town limits. Did you miss us?”

Peggy expelled a harsh breath, but the pink in her cheeks and the glint in her eye gave away her fondness, even as she tried to scowl. “Bloody idiots, the lot of you.”

#

“Hello, lovebirds,” Natasha greeted Steve and Peggy, back at the safehouse.

Steve wasn’t in the mood, still groggy and recovering from the neurotoxin that had been injected into his neck when they’d broken the collar. He felt groggy, and annoyed. Peggy ignored the teasing too, instead hugging Natasha warmly. Steve wished his friends wouldn’t make the jokes, especially now that he could tell Peggy still felt prickly about the reunion. 

"Hey, man, good to see you," Sam said.

Steve moved to embrace Sam in a tight hug, and even if he was glad to see his old friends after years in isolation, three years apart from Bucky, Natasha, and Sam was a blink of an eye to them. Plus, they had each other; especially Bucky and Nat, who’d always been so wrapped up in an obsessive love that blocked out pretty much everything else. These last seventy-years, Steve was ashamed to say he’d felt slightly jealous of them, the potency of their love a constant reminder of what he was missing with Peggy gone. 

Three years was nothing. On the other hand, seventy years had been a long and grim separation. Peggy had been a vital missing link in the group, but the reunion felt forced, awkward. He could tell more than anything that, despite the brief elation Peggy felt at the reunification, she was upset. 

Peggy and Steve silently boarded into the elevator, suffering further indignity as Natasha suggested, “You two go up on ahead. We’ll secure the perimeter. Make yourselves at home.”

Subtle, his best friends were not. Steve frowned as he hit the elevator button, closing the doors on three knowing, annoying faces. For all their teasing, it made things more awkward than they needed to be. Peggy had barely spoken a word to Steve since they’d made their escape. It wasn’t the reunion he’d pictured. The tension sat in the air, shivering, palpable enough that he could taste it, even as the elevator made its slow descent into the underground bunker. 

“I didn’t need the assist,” she finally managed, breaking the silence. “I could have gotten out of detention on my own.”

So, it was going to be like that, then. 

Before the elevator door pinged open, Steve replied, “I know. But I made a call. I stand by it.”

The Winter Soldiers needed their leader back, after seventy long years. 

More importantly, Steve was hoping Peggy might need them back, too.

#

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seriously, check out this amazing [gifset](https://formerlyir.tumblr.com/post/624290483233046528/formerlyir-beautifulwhensarcastic-unable-to) by Beautifulwhensarcastic.


	2. Chapter 2

Several hours after breaking out of a supermax prison, Steve was eating his first free meal in three years and still, somehow, it felt lonelier than eating his breakfast in solitary confinement that morning. He heard footsteps approaching and looked up to find Peggy grabbing food from the stove. As she moved about the tight, small space in the bunker that served as the makeshift kitchen, he let his eyes fall to observe her as covertly as he could. 

She was freshly showered, hair pulled back into a sleek ponytail, wearing a black tank top and matching fatigues. It was the same sort that Natasha wore, nothing too dissimilar to what most military women wore. But he’d last seen Peggy in 1945, wearing an olive-green military uniform, skirt coated with blood, the jacket burnt and crisp on the left collar sleeve. She moved easily now in the modern-day clothing, as gracefully and sure-footed as she always did, as she did in _any_ standard military clothing – whether they were camouflage uniforms, or an ancient tunic with a paludamentum fastened at one shoulder. Still, she looked fresh, eyes alert and sharp, and it reminded Steve that he hadn’t seen Peggy in anything other than his dreams for far too long. His gaze dropped to the exposed skin on her shoulders, recognizing – as he knew he would – the old battle scar on her right shoulder, a wound from before she became immortal.

She settled into the chair opposite him. The food had already been prepared, a simple soup with bread that just needed to be reheated. Natasah, Bucky, and Sam were still up top, avoiding the bunker as if they were afraid to stumble upon Steve and Peggy in any compromising situation. It wasn’t as if the thought hadn’t crossed Steve’s mind, once or twice. But the stilted atmosphere made everything unbearably awkward, and it was hard to get a bead on Peggy’s mood other than the obvious. 

She didn’t want to be here. 

She hadn’t wanted to reunite.

The slice of agony from that knowledge was worse than a physical injury, because Steve doubted this wound would heal quite as prettily as all his others.

“I need to make a supply run," Peggy spoke, breaking the silence. 

Steve tipped an eyebrow. “Natasha didn’t stock enough weapons?” 

He had trouble believing that.

“Not that,” Peggy answered. “Electronics. I have to contact a few people.”

Steve could have asked who she was going to contact, but he sensed enough of her mood to realize she would either deflect or dismiss the question. They sat eating for a few moments, each sipping at the soup in unbearably loud slurps in the otherwise oppressive silence. Finally, it became too much for Steve.

“What were you doing in Shield?” he asked.

“What were you doing in prison?” she returned.

It was a stalemate. For Steve, the answer was unbearably simple and miserable. He was tired. Tired of the constant fighting. Tired of the constant need to look over his shoulders. Tired of the move against evil that never seemed to go away. Today, it was Hydra. Tomorrow, it’d be another enemy with another name. But it had gotten to the point where Steve felt the commitment to the war was all that was getting him out of bed each and every morning, and he didn’t like the idea of fighting on autopilot. So, when unexpectedly, one Saturday afternoon, the FBI cornered him with a warrant and handcuffs, Steve allowed himself to be brought in.

Natasha had been waiting for him the next day, dressed as his lawyer. But Steve made it clear. They weren’t going to interfere. They weren’t going to break him out. Steve was going to sit it out for a while. He was going to take whatever sentence they doled out, at least for the moment. 

The moment lasted three years. 

He didn’t want to explain any of that to Peggy, though.

Peggy took pity on him. “I was deep into my current cover as Margaret ‘Peggy’ Carter. But Shield is either exceptionally inept these days or they are more Hydra spies than anyone could anticipate. I rather stumbled upon a small group of Red Skull loyalists quite by accident, but when I did, I had to kill two of them. Ward and Thompson. They were both regarded as capable and loyal Shield agents. It’s landed me at the top of a very displeasing list, and I'm sure I'm at the top of Coulson's Most Wanted.”

"Coulson?" Steve replied. "You were close with him, weren't you?"

Peggy hesitated for a beat, then nodded, the small outward tell saying more than words. Coulson must have been a trusted friend, and the idea that he saw her as a traitor was more than just a thorn in her paw. It was one of the things that hadn’t surprised him in the least, when he’d first heard the rumors. Peggy working for Shield, fighting to uncover Hydra Spies. Even nearly a century apart, they were still fighting the same battles. He opened his mouth, but the sound of the elevator descending into the bunker was a noisy and loud distraction. With a grating screech, the elevator came to a stop on their floor, and opened to admit Natasha, Bucky, and Sam. They spilled out laughing, in clear high spirits, but stopped short at the wooden and quiet scene in front of them. It wasn’t what they had been expecting to walk in on.

Once again, it was Peggy that broke the quiet. “Who cooked? The soup is abysmal.”

“Bucky,” both Sam and Natasha answered.

“Ah, that explains it.”

“Hey,” Bucky protested. “I didn’t have a lot of options. Natasha stocked this place up like we were going to be staying under for a nuclear Armageddon.”

“You planned the jailbreak,” Natasha said. “I pick the hideout and plan for contingencies. Don’t blame me because you always oversalt the food.”

The man sighed, because he was used to that kind of commentary, and finally sat down around the table next to Steve. The others joined, fitting themselves around the small table, passing bowls, breaking bread. For the first few minutes, there was laughter and light conversation, catching up on what the others had been doing. Natasha and Bucky had spent a significant amount of time in Europe, hunting down and destroying Hydra bases, in between posing as a newlywed couple vacationing down the coastline. Sam had taken to staying in the US, mostly the east coast, although Steve suspected that had more to do with a guy named Riley, just by the way Sam brightened at the mention of him. Riley was an air force officer, a pilot of some kind. Bucky teased Sam mercilessly, saying he’d seen Sam act like a fool around guys plenty of times, but never in such full force. The relationship was clearly a recent development, but Steve could tell it was turning serious, fast. 

The conversation was light and airy, and Steve felt himself remembering how to breathe again, remembering how to speak freely, even with Peggy, because this, the whole lot of them, was so achingly familiar, it was hard not to fall into old patterns. The group fit together like jigsaw puzzles, each individual piece with jagged and sharp edges, each one slightly broken and bent out of shape – but somehow, together, they made sense. Together, they smoothed out the edges and filled in the gaps. 

“So,” Sam said. “What’s the next move, boss?”

“We need to—” Steve began, the same time Peggy answered, “Our priority has to be—”

They stopped, staring at each other. For as long as the team had been together, one unit, Peggy had led them, an undisputed point of authority. But because of her own self-exile, Steve had taken on that mantle of leadership for the last century. 

“Right,” Peggy blinked, settling back. There was color high on her cheeks, but she cleared her throat, nodding tightly, deferring to Steve. “Go on.”

Steve shook his head. “No, you can—”

“It’s quite all right,” Peggy replied, “you should take the lead—”

“I don’t see why it has to be—” Steve protested.

“Okay,” Sam cut in, quickly, exasperated. “I take back the question.”

The guys looked awkwardly at each other, and only Natasha had the fortitude to look at either Peggy or Steve, gaze passing between the two slowly, meaningfully. Even annoyed, Steve found himself rather envious of Natasha, or at least her ability to assess and deconstruct, given her dark calculating gaze ultimately landed on Peggy with an impassive look that usually meant she’d ferreted out a person’s inner thoughts. 

“How about we call it a day,” Natasha announced, coolly. “Rooms are in the back. Only three beds, but we can rearrange if necessary.”

The words hung suspended in the air for a moment, before Steve realized what she meant. Bucky and Natasha shared a room, because they always shared a room. Sam was the resident bachelor, although whatever he had with Riley may have changed that designation officially. That left one room for both Peggy and Steve. Everyone had obviously assumed that would have been fitting, given everything in their history.

Clearly, everyone was reassessing that, picking up on the awkward tension hanging in the air.

“No need to rearrange,” Peggy answered, voice level, giving nothing away. She rose to her feet, clearing her dishes as she went. “As I’m sure you can imagine, it has been an exhausting day. Till the morning.”

She left, expertly avoiding Steve’s gaze as she passed by. 

For a moment, there was blessed silence, which Steve knew would not last. 

“Fuck, man,” Bucky said, wincing. “I’m sorry.”

Natasha elbowed Bucky in the stomach. “Ignore him. She just needs time.”

All Steve could think, though, was that seventy years should have been more than enough time.

#

When he made it to the bedroom, Peggy was carrying a parcel wrapped in plastic bags. "They left us a few personal items," she explained, to his lifted eyebrow. 

She looked a little sheepish, a faint blush on her cheeks that all made her look young, younger than Steve remembered her looking in some time. Peggy glanced over at Steve while he tried to school his features, but he knew his neutral expressions gave everything away. Steve went to the package, curious about what could illicit the reaction from Peggy, and found a box of condoms – but that wasn’t, he quickly realized, what caused the blush. His old compass was also inside, with her picture neatly tucked underneath the lid. There were other items too, but Steve cleared his throat, putting the items on the chest of drawers without a word.

Steve left to wash up and brush his teeth, and by the time he came back to the room, Peggy was already in bed. He debated with himself for a beat. All in all, it was surreal to overthink getting into bed with a woman who had shared his bed for more than half a millennium. Awkward, and he admitted to himself, if no one else, disappointing. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t fantasized about this reunion more times than he could count, and none of them, absolutely none of them, involved him falling into bed with her and staying fully clothed. They didn’t even stay clothed just to _sleep_ ; Peggy preferred to go to sleep with only a shirt on, and Steve always went shirtless. It was a routine established so long ago Steve forget what century it had developed.

He couldn’t tell what Peggy was wearing underneath the blankets, not entirely, but he was willing to bet she was fully clothed in her fatigues still. After a bit, Steve decided keeping his shirt on would have been more against the norm than taking it off, so he doused the lights and stripped his shirt off. It wasn’t, if he was told to swear under oath, something he’d done to make Peggy uncomfortable. But he’d spent the last three years in prison with little else to do but work out. Even he could admit it had produced results. If her eyes lingered a beat longer than necessary on his chest and slid down his arms, he could pretend to ignore that. Even if he was silently pleased that she noticed. 

He got into bed, which sagged excessively under his weight, pulling both of them to the center of the flimsy mattress just from the dip. Peggy nearly rolled into him, then excused herself and pushed back to one edge. Steve just laid there, flat on his back, staring up at the ceiling, wondering how long it would take him to fall asleep when he felt or heard every breath she took. They both laid quietly, for what seemed an eternity.

“Oh, this is ridiculous,” Peggy announced, exasperated.

“You started it,” Steve pointed out.

She laughed, though it was short. “I didn’t… Steve, I’m sorry, this is all so very—”

“Awkward?”

“Yes, very,” Peggy agreed, turning on her side to face him. “I hadn’t woken up this morning to the idea of seeing you and the others. It’s a bit of an adjustment after so long on my own.”

“But hopefully an improvement? You _were_ in lock up this morning, after all.”

“Don’t be boorish, Steve, of course it’s an improvement. I just meant… this wasn’t in my plan.”

He understood that down to his very bones, because he understood how much control meant to Peggy. It was her cornerstone, her bedrock and foundation of everything she did and had done. Control was, no doubt, one of the reasons she had taken up arms when given the talent of immortality, a way to fit her inexplicable life into a plan that made some semblance of sense. If she had purpose, her immortality had purpose, too. And what better purpose was there than to fight against the injustices of the world that others, mere mortals, could never prevail upon? He’d admired that tenacity so much that it was hardly more than meeting her that he realized he was in love with her. 

But there was a downside to her rigid grip on control. He knew that better than anyone. Peggy did not like it when things were outside of her control. She did not handle it well. 

Except, as much as he wanted to blame the awkwardness on her impossible sense of control, there was something else, too. Lack of control didn’t explain the mood she was in, not entirely anyway – and even with the awkwardness hanging between them, he could read her like the lines on his hands. There was something else, something of profound significance, and it was making Peggy close herself off. Steve would bet his soul on it.

“Is it,” Steve said, before he could talk himself out of it, before he could turn coward and run, “is there someone else?”

Her breath caught for a moment, long enough for Steve to fear the answer. “No,” she answered, staring at him. “There isn’t.” 

He nodded, noting the present tense of the declaration, and deciding he didn’t need or want to investigate that any further. 

“What about you?” Peggy replied. “Has there—”

“No,” he answered flatly.

There was no need to equivocate over present tense or past. For Steve, there was no difference in the answer. It was always Peggy. Just Peggy. Even when he _tried_ to move on, it was half-hearted efforts, aborted relationships. Even when the others encouraged him – Bucky dispensing advice, Natasha trying to set him up, Sam playing wingman. Even when he knew Peggy wouldn’t hold it against him, just like he knew he wouldn’t hold it against her if she had taken other lovers. Seventy years was a long time, and it would have been even longer if Peggy had had her way.

The tension between them now was of an entirely different sort than it had been only five minutes ago. 

But she turned away, sounding a little breathless as she said, “Goodnight, Steve.”

“Goodnight, Peggy.”

#

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In Republican and Imperial Rome, the "paludamentum" was a cloak or cape fastened at one shoulder, worn by military commanders, and rather less often by their troops.


	3. Chapter 3

#

_There was a flash. A red coat. The sound of someone talking in rushed Slavic whispers. Black nail polish. Long brown hair. A cold gurney, a glimpse of a medical file. Military men. Doctors. A series of other images, blurred and indistinct, and a woman’s anguished cry, “Pietro!”_

_A boy dies, and she screams._

_Then… pain. So much pain._

Peggy woke up with a gasp in the same instant Steve came startling awake, with a jolt, the shock sending both of them nearly careening out of bed. Sweat soaked and shaking, Peggy stared wide-eyed at the wall, trying to make sense of the dream. She twisted towards Steve as they both came to the same staggering realization.

“Not again,” Peggy said.

“Why now?” Steve whispered, breathless and panting. “After all this time?”

The sounds of the others aggressively stirring in their nearby rooms was clear. A moment later, Sam rushed in, followed quickly by both Bucky and Natasha, bed-rumpled and shell-shocked. Peggy climbed out of bed, restless and agitated, while the others clustered into the small bedroom in a huddle.

“It was a woman,” Bucky said, scrambling to make a clear picture of the dream. “She was young. Twenties?”

“Maybe younger,” Natasha said. “Late teens.”

“Jesus,” Sam spat out. “She’s just a kid.”

Why now? After all this time? What did it mean? 

“What was the language she was speaking?” Bucky asked, confused. “It was a dialect—”

“Slavic of some kind,” Peggy answered, and then finally placed it. “Sokovian.” 

“What did you see?” Natasha asked, turning towards Steve.

But Steve was already snatching his notebook and pencil, too busy sketching the girl’s face to add anything to the jumble of pieces they were all trying to patch together. It had been years, _centuries,_ since they’d last felt this eerie sensation, these disturbing and prophetic dreams. Peggy would never forget a single one of them. Each and every one brought about a new member of her family together, after all. The pencil was quickly working down Steve’s notepad. Her skin was smooth and pale, Peggy knew. Sharp cheekbones. Blue eyes. The girl wasn’t starving, necessarily, but she didn’t have much meat on her either. Peggy could see Steve shut his eyes as he tried to capture the image in his mind, tried to commit the sight to memory so that he could draw it out clearly. 

“Her hair was long,” Natasha told him, coming to stand over his shoulders. “It went nearly to her mid-back. The color was brown – chestnut brown.”

“She had a dozen needle marks on her arm, did you see that?” Bucky answered. “Drug addict?”

“No,” Natasha responded, severely. “She was scared of the needles.”

“She felt—” Sam began, unnerved. It was his first time being on this collective end of it, and he looked more shaken than the rest. “Not just scared, but—”

“Grief,” Peggy answered, feeling hollow. Peggy had felt the heartache before she had felt the girl’s own death – an injection of some type, burning like acid in her veins. “ _Pietro._ She said the name Pietro. She saw him die. Someone close to her.”

By this time, Steve had already traced the girl’s eyes, brimmed with tears, just as she had been in the dream. Her eyelashes were dark smudges against her cheekbones. There was the snarl of outlining strokes under her chin that made her look like her head was thrown back in torment, framed by her long hair. Peggy watched as Steve’s strong fingers worked quick and agile strokes. Her lips were pulled open in a scream. He penciled deep shadows under the sharp edge of her jaw, in the hollow of her throat, under the strong curve of her cheekbones. The dark locks of hair were done quickly, almost aggressively, as if Steve was trying to exorcise the image onto the paper as quickly as he could manage, as if it wasn’t seared into his brain the same way it would be for the rest of them. 

“I saw a name on the medical chart,” Natasha said, eyes squeezed shut as she tried to picture it. “Max—something.”

“ _Maximoff_ ,” Sam finished, voice rising eagerly. “It was Maximoff, I’m sure of it. And the door – it was a metal door, like a prison. Barred. Cold.”

“Why is it happening _now_?” Bucky asked, frustrated. “The first night all of us have been together in nearly seventy years? That can’t be a coincidence.”

“There are no coincidences,” Peggy said flatly, because it was a realization that was long and hard-earned for her. Her life, complicated and thorny, knotted in a thousand different ways, was never as wayward as one would think from just a glance. “She’s a prisoner, but it wasn’t just a prison. It felt like a medical facility. Sokovian and military.”

“Hydra,” Bucky determined, lips pressed into a thin line. “The Sokovian government allows Hyrda to run human experiments on the populace there. Nat and I almost raided a facility a few years ago.”

“So the boy’s name – Pietro Maximoff,” Peggy said. “He’s a lost cause, but we can find her.”

“We _have_ to find her,” Steve said, finally breaking his silence with a deep, solemn voice. 

He’d finished his sketch. He handed the notebook over to Peggy, who took it as the others crowded around her to review his skillful drawing. The girl looked innocent, even in pain. Striking. Angry, too – Peggy had undoubtedly felt that, even through the grief and anguish. 

“I know people,” Peggy said, resolutely. “I’ll handle the retrieval.”

“Peg,” Bucky spoke up, incredulous. “Is that such a good idea?”

Peggy looked back at him without rebuke or denial. “If we’re dreaming about her, she’s dreaming about us. If she’s in Hydra’s hands, she’s a beacon for them leading right to us.”

“But you just broke out of Shield’s custody,” Sam replied, trying to sound reasonable. “You won’t be able to fly internationally. I made good forgeries, but your face will be splashed everywhere. I’m not a miracle worker.”

“Like I said,” Peggy answered tightly, “I know people. I can get out to Sokovia without official papers.”

Steve shot her a stern look. “You’re not going alone.”

“They’ll be looking for the both of you,” Natasha pointed out. “That makes it all the more obvious. You two should be the last ones doing this.”

Peggy’s jaw clenched. “I’m not hiding out here while this girl is lost and scared. I answered every single one of these dreams, for every single one of you. I’m not about to sit this out.”

The others turned towards Steve to plead the case, and Peggy knew Steve was technically in charge now, had been for a long time for the team. But Peggy had her limits. She flashed a look towards Steve, too, one full of warning. If he fought her on this, he would lose. Peggy could stand for a lot of things, but this? This was her responsibility more than it was anyone else’s. She was old enough to remember what it was like when there was no one else like her, her gift of immortality a petrifying and unknown quality. She remembered wandering from village to village, cast out and condemned, branded as a witch, a devil, a god. When she found the others, when she found Steve, she’d gained a purpose in guiding them through the darkness.

She wasn’t about to let anyone else handle this. 

Steve understood that, if the look on his face said anything. But he seemed to be debating with himself for a moment, and Peggy already recognized that stubborn glint in his eyes, the tenacious square of his jaw. He wasn’t going to leave her side, either.

“Call your people,” Steve told her. “Whatever passage you book, book it for two. The rest of you,” he said, turning to the group at large, “find out whatever you can about this Pietro Maximoff person. It’ll lead us to the girl. We need intelligence ASAP.”

#

Less than an hour later, Peggy and Steve were well on their way to confirmed arrangements in the back of a cargo plane carrying shipments of Stark Industry weapons to the Baltics. The trip was curtesy of an old friend of Peggy’s – the former CEO of Stark Industries himself, Howard Stark, a man approaching past a hundred but no less spirited than he had been at half his age. He hadn’t batted an eye in lending a hand, although he was far more curious to discover that she was traveling with a partner.

“Is this the mysterious beau you’ve always hinted at?” Howard asked over the phone, aimlessly teasing and still hitting the mark with surprising accuracy. “You usually travel alone, or with your Shield friends – but I know that’s not likely now.”

Peggy wasn’t surprised Howard knew about her indictments of treason. She ignored the bait. “I need supplies and weapons. Cash. Plenty of it.” 

“Done,” Howard answered, never one to deny Peggy anything. “The plane will take you to Palanga and deliver you whatever you need, and you can take the train the rest of the way to Sokovia. Why Sokovia, by the way?”

“I wanted to do some sightseeing,” Peggy answered, curtly. “I have the counterfeit passports already, but that list of necessary supplies...”

She gave him the list, as well as the names of the fictitious aliases that Sam had forged for their documents, a married couple by the name of Grant and Elizabeth Smith. Howard promised that all the necessary arrangements would be made, not even questioning why Peggy was asking for so much ammunition and weaponry. Stark didn’t even bat an eye; it was his line of business after all, and he had long ago fallen into this role of benefactor to her. 

When she hung up, Steve was staring at her. “Do I want to know how you have such close ties to a billionaire recluse who has weapons ties to nearly every first world country on Earth? And probably the majority of third world countries, too.”

Peggy opened her mouth, intending on giving a flaccid answer about Howard being an old friend. Except she could not use the term _old friend_ with Steve, nor with anyone else in her family, because that designation meant something significantly different to them than it did to virtually every other person on Earth. 

“I met Howard in the late forties,” Peggy answered, forcing herself to divulge something. It had been so long since she’d freely given up secrets, it almost hurt her to part with them. But Steve deserved honesty, as much as she could give. He deserved more than that, in fact, but things would get too messy if she told him everything. “He knows about my immortality, obviously. Nothing about you, or the others—” she added this quickly, cutting off Steve’s protesting surprise. “He’s a scoundrel in a thousand different ways, but surprisingly a good friend underneath.”

“You trust him?” Steve said, frowning.

She knew the frown was well-deserved. Stark Industries was an international conglomerate that made obscene amounts of money wherever there was war. Both father and son were flagrant philanders, showy and arrogant, preening peacocks eager for an adoring audience. Howard had calmed with age and marriage, retreating from the public’s eyes as he came closer and closer to one hundred years of age. Peggy had known Howard for the majority of his life, and despite his well-earned reputation, he had guarded her secret for nearly as long. 

Tony Stark, however, she had never met. With Howard’s failing health and advancing years, it was only a matter of time before Tony would inherent the kingdom, and he would likely continue in his father’s footsteps of supplying enough weaponry to kill the world several hundred times over. A shame, really. Tony Stark was, from all accounts, absolutely brilliant, maybe even more crafty than his father. Certainly too charismatic for his own good. 

“It’s complicated,” she answered, ultimately. “Howard has had ample opportunity to try and take advantage of me. He has crossed plenty of lines, but he has never tried anything against me. In fact, he’s been a faithful ally.”

She thought of both him and Edwin Jarvis – ten years deceased now, this coming July, though it pained Peggy to think of it. 

“Well,” Steve said, diplomatically. “He probably realized it wouldn’t have been a smart move to cross you.”

Peggy made a noncommittal noise. “We should pack up.”

“Already done,” Steve answered. “Not much to pack. I took the liberty of packing for you, too."

He picked up a backpack of essentials, and since she’d hardly come into the bunker with any sort of possessions (except the orange jumper on her back), she trusted it was filled with whatever supplies Natasha had purchased for her prior to the jailbreak. When he passed her the bag, she felt the barest warmth of his fingers glance against hers in the transfer, a sharp flare of heat and tactile sensation. Peggy took a moment to rummage through the bag, as if remotely fascinated by the clothes and feminine hygiene products inside, mostly just to cover for the reaction to his touch. 

They had, despite sharing the bed, maintained a respectful distance from each other. It was surreal to do so with Steve, and at the same time, she couldn’t tamp down the urge to skitter away from any contact, for fear of what would ensue once they started touching. She had never been a woman that lacked any sort of self-control, but this was not just any man. This was Steve. She had to be on guard. She _had_ to be distant, otherwise there would be far more pain than was necessary by the end of this all.

Bucky and Sam were waiting for them by the door when they prepared to leave. Steve had to jog back to their room to retrieve a last-minute item, so Peggy found herself saying goodbye to them by herself. Natasha wasn’t in sight, but Peggy knew better than to assume she’d went anywhere far. 

Peggy did not believe she was imagining the sense of fraught nerves hanging in the air, emanating from the boys. They could not hide their annoyance that Peggy was running away almost as soon as she was reunited with them. It wasn’t entirely fair of them, as finding this newest member was something that could ill-afford to wait, but Peggy understood that underneath the veneer of understanding and acceptance that both Bucky and Sam were trying to maintain, there was resentment. Steve hadn’t been the only one she had abandoned seventy years ago. Peggy knew that. She didn’t think an apology would cover the transgression, and her explanation would certainly be lacking to their ears, if they ever asked for one. In either case, Peggy didn’t try yet because she wasn’t prepared to do the apology or explanation the justice it deserved. She simply hugged each of them tightly once, before making her leave.

Outside, she found Natasha waiting by the car. “Where’s Steve?” she asked.

Peggy trudged up the path in quick and efficient strides. “Not quite sure. He had to retrieve a last-minute item.”

Natasha nodded, then said, rather laconically, “You know what you’re doing, boss? Because I know you didn’t plan on being here, with all of us again.”

Peggy heard the unspoken entreaty of Steve’s name, and selected to ignore it. “I’m getting my bearings again,” she assured. “What’s that saying? Like riding a bike. We’ll all adjust soon enough.”

“I was thinking of another saying, actually. _Stary drug luchshe novykh dvukh.”_

Peggy smiled, understanding the Russian perfectly, of course. The saying had an English equivalent that could best be translated to: _Old friends and old wine are best._ Peggy loaded the car with both her and Steve’s bags, then leaned on the passenger-side door once everything was stowed inside. "The longer you stay hidden here,” she told Natasha, changing the subject as easily as either of them could scale a wall, “the better chance we have of bringing this new girl back here unscathed. I want a place for her to lie low and regroup, and this bunker is as good as any. Make room for another bed."

Natasha nodded.

Steve finally emerged, although he didn’t appear to have any last-minute item on him that had required such a delay. Then she realized – it was his compass, probably, tucked neatly into his pocket. He had taken to carrying it in the few last months that they’d been together in the 1940s, but she had been surprised to see he’d kept it all these years. 

Peggy packed into the car while Steve and Natasha exchanged a quick goodbye. At the end, Natasha bent down a little so she could see both of them through the car window. "Behave," she told them. “And don’t go landing in prison again. You only earn one _get out of jail_ free card each century.”

With that, she patted the roof and stepped away, allowing Steve to pull the car away.

#

On the flight, sitting between cargo packages that appeared as big as cars, she had plenty of time to talk with Steve and catch up on the quick sketches and outlines of things he’s done in the twentieth and twenty-first century. He didn’t mention the two-and-a-half decades following World War II, and neither did she ask – it was a horrible time for her, and she doubted he wanted to talk about it anymore than she did. But she did find out Steve spent the seventies mostly in Europe, and the eighties in Asia. He also spent some time in Sudan, just as she did, but they missed each other by a handful of years. He told her Natasha and Bucky broke up for about a decade around that time – what they considered a break, although who initiated it had turned into a sour point of contention that generated squabbling between the two. They all only came back to the US after the turn of the century, mainly because of Sam, who had settled firmly into his latest alias as a discharged US military man helping other vets deal with PTSD. 

“He’s still doing a lot of good with it,” Steve told her, clearly proud. “You’d be amazed how good he is, especially in some of his meetings.”

“I guess he has some experience dealing with post-trauma,” Peggy ventured, trying for casual.

Steve gave a pained grimace, nodding. 

Peggy told him a bit about her travels, too, although not as much. Her time with Shield had led her all around the globe, into backwaters and small towns as much as big cities and the open road. Fury had quickly singled her out among the recruits early on, but Peggy had tried her best not to get noticed too much. Especially when Coulson’s team started digging up more and more 0-8-4s, what Shield considered collectively as _special_ _object of unknown origin_. Peggy mused that, clearly, immortal warriors such as themselves would certainly qualify within the designation, but no one had ever come close to suspecting Peggy’s immortality – aside from Agent Thompson, moments before his death.

“It was unfortunate,” Peggy told him. “He was always an ass, but I never suspected him of being Hydra until the end. Despite his lack of charm, I had started to grow fond of him. His disloyalty was… surprising.”

Perhaps Steve had caught onto the hitch in her voice, or the way she avoided his gaze, but he tactfully suggested that they both get some sleep while they still could. And it didn’t matter that they hardly had comfortable sleeping arrangements. Peggy’s knack for falling asleep in any position, in any setting, was an old running joke among her team. Nevertheless, Peggy felt as if both of them were too trapped in their own thoughts to manage much sleep. She had some idea what was preoccupying Steve, given the number of glances he kept sliding her way when he didn’t think she was looking.

Peggy, herself, had more than ample time to ponder what this reunion with Steve meant. As much as it scared her, as much as it went against every single rule that she’d laid down for herself, Peggy couldn’t deny that it was gratifying to see him again. The first night had been riddled with awkwardness and pressure, but already some of the tension was falling by the wayside. The more she spoke with him, the more she remembered how easy things were with Steve, how familiar it was to share a knowing glance at a certain interlude in a story, which oftentimes revealed more in subtext than the texts exposed. 

She had missed Steve, so _fiercely_ , but she had forgotten the strength of her feelings for him by half. Not just attraction, although that was a given, but the comfort of someone who _knew_ her when all Peggy had allowed in recent memory was the illusion of familiarity. Steve, however, knew her in ways no other man or woman, dead or alive, had ever known Peggy. It was what made this reunion so shamelessly reckless and dangerous, and posed to threaten everything Peggy had been working towards for decades now. Because Steve, through no fault of his own, presented an obstacle to her plans. He managed to throw her bearings off just by existing in her general proximity, crafting a mix of love and fear and grief that undoubtedly left her in turmoil. 

She had to remember she couldn’t let herself fall for him again, even if she’d never entirely _risen_ at any point from the grace of loving him. There was a larger goal in store for Peggy now, and as much as it pained her, now, _especially now,_ she could not let herself be distracted or dissuaded from her path. Not when she was so close to achieving her life’s – _lives’_ – pursuit. 

As always, Steve was following her lead, letting her set the strange new parameters of their dynamic, a deferential distance that she was sure he did not understand. And still, he abided by her wishes. Ironic, because the respect he showed her made resisting him all the more difficult, and he was completely oblivious to this fact. And he had somehow grown more gorgeous, too, in the twenty-first century, which was almost _criminal_. Peggy found herself staring at his handsome features more than once, practically hypnotized by a face she knew better than anyone else’s. She was almost embarrassed by that, if not for the fact that she had caught Steve staring at her with the same level of intensity at least twice as many times. 

Once they landed in Europe, they cleaned up and posed as a married couple to catch a high-speed train through the snow-covered countryside of Sokovia. Peggy sat on the aisle in a plush chair, eating snack foods and observing their company in quietness. They couldn’t talk as freely because of the close proximity of strangers, even ones that spoke a foreign language, so Steve and Peggy allowed companiable silence to fall between them. He stretched out on the opposite bench, pulling out his notebook again to sketch more drawings, all of the girl; the achingly familiar sight of him scribbling in his notebook was enough of a comfort to lull her the last bit to sleep. 

But Peggy woke up with a jolt from another prophetic dream, this one about the girl screaming in her cell, rough hands gripping her shoulders to strap her bound into a bed. For further experimentation.

People were staring at her. Peggy must have screamed in her sleep.

“Hey, hey,” Steve said soothingly, and he was close, crouching in front of her, near enough for her to see the startling blue-grayness in his eyes. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

“No, no, it’s not okay,” Peggy managed tightly, tears welling. Angrily, she swiped at the corner of her eyes. “She’s just a child, Steve.”

#


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A scene in this fic is semi-inspired by this [gifset](https://formerlyir.tumblr.com/post/624454491633303552/continuants-alwayssodramatic-steggy-au-the) and I have to give credit where it’s due.

#

Wanda Maximoff, as Peggy learned the girl was called, was only sixteen years old. Rumors informed them that she had been kidnapped from Serbia and brought to the Wundagore Hospital at the base of Sokovian’s great mountain region. From what Bucky had gathered, she and her twin brother, Pietro Maximoff, were the children of a Romany couple, Django and Marya Maximoff. Hydra had supposedly abducted the twins nearly a year ago, and god knew what they were doing to them in all this time. Peggy was mentally preparing herself for a horror show. But the hospital, when they drove to it, looked deserted except for a light on the second story. Steve parked the car down the block and armed himself, handing Peggy a compact machine gun to carry. The plan to retrieve was simple. They could get through security without much difficulty; it was always an assessment of how much damage to _avoid_ rather than how much damage they wanted done. With this being a Hydra base experimenting on minors, Peggy didn’t particularly feel the need the hold back as much as normal. Still, they both preferred to avoid a death toll if possible. 

There was no noise from the hospital when they breached sometime around one am. At first, Peggy wondered if Bucky’s intel had been wrong, but she’d never second guessed his work before, and she doubted anything had happened during the last century to diminish his work ethic. If Bucky said the girl was in this seemingly abandoned hospital, then Peggy would look until the girl was found.

“We need to split up,” Peggy announced. “Cover more ground.”

Steve didn’t like the idea, but he nodded. 

Without words, Peggy went high and Steve went low. They split up the levels and moved quickly. Peggy peeked around the corners and moved quietly through the silent, darkened halls. It wasn’t until another ten minutes before she came across the first signs of life, and then it shocked her. Brock Rumlow was reclined in a seat, the front two legs of his chair lifted off the ground as he leaned heavily back against the wall. He had a M4 carbine barreled assault rifle in his hands, looking bored and lazy, but Peggy knew enough about the man’s reputations. He was a mercenary for hire, with kill counts higher than most small American towns.

If he was here, so were other special ops forces. The place wouldn’t be empty. And they had to be guarding something – or someone – of importance.

“I have eyes on a threat,” Peggy announced to Steve, through her earpiece. “Brock Rumlow.”

Steve didn’t swear, but Peggy could tell it was a close thing. He knew who Rumlow was. “Do not engage. Wait for me.”

Peggy canted her head to the side, incredulous. “Negative. I’m moving in.”

“Peggy, stand down—”

“You can’t give me orders, Steve.”

And with that, she moved. She turned a corner sharply and slipped out to the floor, intending a silent takedown to avoid drawing a bigger crowd. But at the last second, Rumlow turned and caught her gun by the muzzle as it came to smash down on his neck. He whirled and swung out with a hard jab, fist connecting with her jaw. She took a spill to the floor, and he looked down with a grin.

“About damn time something happened,” he grunted. “Was getting bored.”

Peggy jumped to her feet with a glare. She spun around his next swing, popping back up from underneath to deliver an uppercut that had him staggering back. It seemed a point of hurt vanity for him that she got off a shot, because when Rumlow came back, he came back _angry._ He got a few good licks in, she would give him that. He had not only the build, but also the skills that made it clear why he’d earned his reputation. But Peggy didn’t have to worry because she didn’t have to hold back, not like when she worked for Shield and had to conceal her healing abilities from her co-workers and friends. Peggy had the advantage now of not caring about pain, not even death, a minor inconvenience that would resolve itself economically. Rumlow was a big guy, maybe even bigger than Steve, but Peggy wasn’t concerned. Her capacity for fear had been all but extinguished.

She took the hits and rebounded, jabbing a cross at him and following it up with a backstab to the solar plexus. She’d already disarmed him by this time, cutting his rifle free from his body with a serrated knife – but Peggy used the dangling strap of his weapon to vault herself over him, dropping back down behind his spine. Then it was another several seconds as she strangled Rumlow with the harness of his own gun, cutting off oxygen as he slowly dropped to his knees. She didn’t kill him, although the urge occurred to her. In the end, she just left him unconscious on the floor, drooling in a little puddle.

Steve came across them like that, skidding to a halt. "Y'know, there used to be a time when we worked as a team."

Peggy did her best to ignore this. He was more worried than angry that she hadn’t waited for him, and she knew it stemmed from a good place; he hadn't seen her in so long, of course he'd be overprotective. But Peggy wasn’t about to apologize. She made a silent hand-gesture that she would continue down the hall, and he should follow. Steve’s jaw tensed, but he gave a tight nod and they continued down the floor. 

The rest of Rumlow’s men, of which there were at least seven, were handled without much incident. It was, despite Peggy’s earlier bout of self-reliance, a reminder that of how well she worked with Steve in the field. She advanced under his cover of suppressive fire, and then he took his turn, leapfrogging ahead in quick succession until they had Rumlow’s team backed into a corner. When they ran out of ammo, it came down to Steve’s strength – and Peggy knew it was unnatural, even by her standards, because he could rip bricks apart with his bare hands with an ease and grace that continued to amaze her. But it was the way he fought, a decisive strategist, cunning and smart, that made him truly intimidating in a fight. He moved in ways that anticipated her advances, defended her from her blind corners, and took up any slack she gave in the assaults. 

When the floor was littered with bodies, they went in search of Wanda. 

They found the girl behind the last door on the floor, the largest room, an operating room with an observation deck up top. There was a lone man at her side, dressed in medical scrubs – a doctor or medical professional of some kind. The girl was conscious, hair matted to the side, looking like she hadn’t seen a shower in days. The girl stared wide-eyed at Steve and Peggy as they marched in, guns aloft; not only was she strapped to a bed, but also tied up in a straitjacket. There was a medical file on the cart next to the gurney (likely the same one they’d seen in their dreams), alongside a tray of syringes and sharp blades. 

“I don’t mean any harm,” the man said, fearful of their approach, raising his hands in surrender. “Please don’t hurt—”

Peggy knocked him unconscious with the butt end of her rifle.

“Who are you?” Wanda demanded thickly.

“Friends,” Steve answered, and Peggy could appreciate the skeptical look that fell across the girl’s face. “We’re here to help,” he promised. “We’re going to get you out of this hellhole.”

This hellhole, as Steve had accurately described it, was entirely too empty, despite the building seemingly functioning as a small hospital. Peggy knew without discussing it with Steve that this was a concern. Efficiency and swiftness needed to be the order of the day. Steve shouldered his rifle and pulled a combat knife out of his belt, but when he walked past Peggy to cut the girl’s bindings, there was an odd moment where Peggy felt something. There was a strange familiar tick, an uncomfortable feeling like she was being watched. Peggy opened her mouth, but Steve had already loosened the hooks on the girl’s back, releasing the restraints on the straitjacket.

Wanda rolled away from them as soon as she was free, scrambling to her feet like a wounded animal ready to attack. 

“We’re not here to hurt you,” Steve said.

“I won’t give you the chance,” the girl agreed. “Back away, or I’ll hurt you.”

Peggy was surprised by the grit the girl demonstrated, but it was the strange red emanation radiating from the girl’s fingertips that was the real concern. It was otherworldly, and strange.

“It’s okay,” Steve said, hands raising in surrender. “Whatever they did to you, we can help you.”  


“Yes,” the girl snapped, angrily. “I’ll trust any man with a gun, shall I?”

Peggy was starting to like this girl. Even after being strapped to a bed, even after being experimented upon for who knows how long, even after losing her brother – she wasn’t freighted to the point of cowering. She was dangerous. Peggy knew instantly why Wanda Maximoff had been chosen by fate. All of them were warriors, in one way or another, long before they’d become immortals. This girl wasn’t to be trifled with, and Peggy could appreciate that.

Unfortunately, they did not have time for her battling spirit.

Peggy aimed her gun towards the girl’s forehead. 

It wasn’t as if the girl would _stay_ dead.

“No, no,” Steve urged, casting Peggy a dark look. He slowly unhooked the strap of his gun, setting the weapon on the floor and kicking it away. “Not like that.”

“Then what?” Peggy demanded in a harsh whisper, not entirely heartless. “I’d love to do the soft and understanding approach to this, darling, but we need to get out of here _now_.”

Whatever else was meant to happen, didn’t. Peggy wasn’t sure what happened, in fact. One moment she was standing on one side of the room with Steve, debating the best options of taking in a feral-looking teenaged immortal (with powers of some sort, it appeared) – when abruptly, Peggy was hit with something bright and crimson. Her vision darkened, a flash of red, then black – and when she opened her eyes again, Peggy was staring at the bright smiling face of her twelve-year-old daughter.

_“Hello,” Sarah greeted with a grin. Her lovely blond hair was done up in curls, the way she always liked in Peggy’s hair. “Can we leave now, Mommy? I want to go home.”_

_The scene around them transformed then, and Peggy stood for a second just staring. They were in the kitchen to their old 1940s flat in London, the yellow oven turned on and, from the smell, they were baking cookies._ _She could hear Steve in the other room, hollering to them to hurry up so he could take his girls dancing. He’d put on the radio, piping in an old song that Peggy always fancied._ _**It's been a long, long time. // You'll never know how many dreams. // I've dreamed about you**_ _. They loved dancing in the living room, all three of them – first, with Sarah climbing onto Steve’s toes as father and daughter strode across the room. Then, after Sarah had had her fill, giggling and laughing, Peggy would step into the safe embrace of Steve’s comforting arms, her head pillowed against his chest._

_“Is dad here?” Sarah asked, excitedly. “Oh, how I’ve missed him!”_

“Peg!” a strong familiar voice drifted in, but it sounded so far away. “Peggy, snap out of it—” 

_Peggy wavered, feeling dazed and confused. But Sarah was saying, “—we can be together again. We can be a family again. Isn’t that what you want?”_

_Sarah held out a hand for Peggy to take, and Peggy found herself stepping forward, eyes filled with tears as she slowly reached out to touch the young girl’s fingers. The hand was small, and soft, and Peggy could scarcely believe it, the warmth she could feel from it. Sarah always had such beautiful features, especially her petite hands. Both father and daughter shared an affinity for drawing, and Peggy always cherished them for that._

“Peg, c’mon, you have to snap out of it!”

_“Stay with me,” Sarah said. “I don’t want to be alone again.”_

And then the spell, the vision, the dream – whatever it was, it broke, snapping like a cord had been cut. Peggy’s legs crumbled at the knees, chest heaving, but Steve was right there beside her, holding her up before she spilled to the floor. Peggy gasped for breath, and looked around wildly, finding the hospital room in shambles, and the girl, Wanda, knocked out with a syringe sticking out of her neck. 

Steve had knocked the girl unconscious with a sedative, it seemed.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” he was saying mindlessly, soothingly, stroking Peggy’s hair. He sounded absolutely petrified for her; Peggy hadn’t realized she was crying, but there were tears tracking down her cheeks, and her throat felt like she had been screaming raw. “You’re all right, Peg.”

But she wasn’t all right. In that moment, Peggy felt certain she hadn’t been in decades. 

In fact, in that horrid moment stretching out, Peggy felt like she would never be all right ever again.

#

Steve was making it up as he went along, but quick and decisive choices needed to be made. He hated to do it, but the girl had proven dangerous. Steve had no idea how long the sedative would last; this young, everything took a lengthier time to shake off. Drugs, alcohol, death – it all took longer. He grabbed the medical file off the cart, strapped the girl’s sleeves back into the straitjacket, and scooped Wanda up with one arm and threw her into a fireman's carry. If luck would be on their side, she’d stay unconscious long enough to reach safety. 

He helped Peggy stand up with the other arm, but she was still dizzy and weak, the fog of confusion making her steps falter every third step or so. He had his hands full as they made their way out of the hospital, but Steve was determined. Peggy wasn’t saying much – hadn’t, in fact, said a single thing, not since she’d stopped screaming from what Wanda had done to her. Stopped screaming _their daughter’s name_ , Steve remembered, with a shaking sickness that felt full-bodied and overwhelming.

They managed to make it to the car, where he placed Wanda into the backseat and then helped Peggy into her own passenger seat. 

When they were driving, he opened the glove compartment and pulled out a bottled water, handing it to Peggy. “Drink it,” he ordered, when she looked blankly at the bottle. “Peg, c’mon, drink up.”

Slowly, she took the offered bottle and drank. She didn’t say anything.

_Sarah._

What had happened to Peggy to bring their daughter’s name to her lips? Steve looked back at the unconscious girl’s form in the backseat, alarmed and uneasy. This was not the time to ask Peggy for details. Whatever she'd been through had been a lot, and he'd understood in a way he hadn't before World War II, how things could simply be too much – to even _think_ of their daughter’s name, much less utter it aloud, he knew Peggy must have been shaken to her core. As a soldier, he understood the desire to never want to talk about it, about what they’d survived, about what they’d lost. Nothing, not in all the years he’d lived, had ever hurt as much as losing his little girl. 

Peggy had chosen self-exile rather than sharing her grief, and he’d learned to keep quiet himself.

“Safehouse,” Peggy said, eventually, sounding like she’d been chewing glass. “We need to get to Howard’s safehouse.”

#

Peggy’s benefactor had everything set up, ready and waiting. Steve still didn’t trust the man, not with everything he knew about his company and the chaos Stark Industries had undoubtedly wrought on the world, but right now, Steve wasn’t looking a gift horse in the mouth. The place was small, but adequately stocked. He deposited Wanda’s unconscious form onto the bed in the only bedroom, shackling her legs to the radiator with some chains he pulled from the trunk of the car. It was crude, and horrible to do, especially considering what the girl had already been through, but Steve had to make sure she didn’t do anything while he sorted out Peggy.

When he returned to the main living room, it was clean and baren, not even a television to adorn it. There was a single sofa, which was large enough to seat two people, if that. He had deposited Peggy on it before he’d gone to secure Wanda, and it hadn’t looked like Peggy had moved an inch since he’d left. Her breathing, which had been ragged and uneven when he’d first brought her in, had now evened out into smooth, slow breaths. 

He deposited his backpack at the side and dropped to his knees in front of her. She looked like a zombie. Peggy stared unblinking for a moment at something in the distance, and he had to tug her chin down for her eyes to focus on him. He wanted to reach for her and pull her into his arms, but he didn’t know if he had that right anymore.

She blinked at him, then took a deep breath. “Steve,” she said, and visibly tried to pull herself together. “I’m—I’m fine.”

The hell she was. 

“What happened?” he asked.

She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Don’t give me that, Peg. What happened? You said—you said Sarah’s name.”

Peggy flinched, pulling away. 

The atmosphere changed subtly from jumpy to something more withdrawn, a tension that Steve noticed because he had grown so familiar with the sensation over the decades. He pulled back and stood, looming over her for a brief moment until he stepped away. He leaned against the wall, considering the hallway to Wanda’s room and whether he should just return to it. If he had his choice, he’d rather run straight to the nearest gym where he could pummel a punching bag until his hands bled. But he didn’t have that choice. He had dealing with Peggy or dealing with Wanda. And acclimating a traumatized teenager to an impossible revelation was likely more productive than attempting to get Peggy to admit to the vulnerability of their lost child. 

Her refusal to acknowledge even the mention of their daughter wasn't remotely surprising, of course. She never let him share in that pain, even if it had been equally his. When their daughter… when they recovered her small body from the wreckage of the bombs… Peggy had just _left_. It wouldn’t have made it okay if they’d shared in the grief. Nothing would have made it okay. But there was something to be said about shared sorrow, the sharp edges of pain softened by a connection to someone who knew and understood. 

Even after all this time, she refused to allow herself the comfort of solace, and by doing so, denied him the same comfort as well. He loved Peggy with all his heart, but her stubbornness was going to be the death of her one day when he knew all other threats would fail.

“We have our hands full,” Peggy said, quietly, and Steve realized she was talking about Wanda. “She is powerful, and dangerous, and I’m not in the position to get through to her.”

The words, unsurprisingly, broke away from the palpable tension in the room. Serious, but deflective. Making her point clear and defusing the ticking bomb all at once. She was right, of course. Wanda had deemed Peggy a threat from the very first look. Whatever damage control needed to be done, it needed to be done by Steve. Peggy always knew how to read a room, even when she didn’t particularly like what was written. 

“You going to be all right,” Steve asked, “with her?”

Peggy’s lips pressed into a thin line. “I’m not her biggest fan at the moment, but she’s just a child. I can remember that.”

“Okay. Well, then. Are you going to be all right,” Steve asked, “in general?”

Peggy’s face hardened, closing off. “Of course.”

“Right,” Steve said, sardonically. “Don’t know why I asked.”

He pushed off the wall, and started towards the bedroom, feeling restless and unsettled and full of dark thoughts, when Peggy stopped him. “She can read you,” she said. “Telepathy, I imagine. Be mindful of that.”

He nodded.

#

“You are,” Wanda said, watching him cautiously from across the room, “not what I was expecting.”

Wanda’s face was too pale, sickly and strung out, but then again, he'd seen worse. Natasha had been frozen solid when they first found her in Yakutsk in 1642, eight thousand kilometers from where they first began their search in Moscow. It had been a white winter rather than a green one, and white winters in Russia were the devil. 

The straitjacket may have been preventing Wanda from using her powers; he’d read enough of her medical file. Peggy had been right about the telepathy, but it was so much more. Reality warping abilities. Hypnosis. Something called energy projection, whatever the hell that was.

“You can read minds,” Steve said.

Wanda didn’t respond.

“Read mine,” he offered blandly.

That surprised the girl. He surprised her again when he walked forward, letting the restraints on her straitjacket loose, removing the chains. He watched, knowing he was likely leaving his life in her hands, but he needed to establish trust. This girl had reacted earlier to a threat. He needed to know if she could react and acknowledge anything else. When she was free, he just stood there, waiting for Wanda to do… whatever it was that she did. She sat, staring at him, perfectly still except for her fingers moving over one another. Forefinger over knuckle, a slight shift of her hands in the air. It was a mesmerizing rhythm, and then she lifted her hand to Steve’s forehead, and he sucked in a sharp inhale. 

Wanda closed her eyes and concentrated, and he could pretend he wasn’t nervous but that probably wouldn’t fly with a telepath. Instead, he offered her exactly what he promised – his mind, so she could read his intentions. 

When she staggered back in disbelief, Steve realized she’d read more than just his intentions. “Impossible,” she said, breathless. “You can’t—”

“Be immortal,” Steve answered, wryly. “Yeah, just like telepaths don’t exist.”

Wanda watched him closely. “You’re… _old._ ”

He almost snorted. Coming from a sixteen-year-old, he tried not to take offense at the underlying current of horror in her voice. “Yeah, but I’m just a man. Eat, sleep, walk, and breathe. I’ve got a few surprises up my sleeve, but mostly, yeah, just a guy trying to make it through the day.”

“A man with the powers of a god,” Wanda countered.

“There’s only one god,” Steve answered warily. “And I’m pretty sure he doesn’t dress like me.” 

The answer surprised Wanda. “So… are you at least a good man?”

Steve didn’t know exactly how to respond to that. “I fight for what I believe is right. We all do. My team – my family.”

She seemed to understand exactly who he was referencing. “How were you all in my dreams?”

“We dream of each other. They stop when we meet. It used to take years to track a new one. Bucky – he’ll be a friend, you’ll like him – well, he took seven years to track down, give or take. We got to you within a day. The modern world has its charms.”

“Why me?” Wanda demanded. “How?”

Steve gave a short laugh, without humor. “Hell if I know. Fate, destiny, whatever you want to call it, if you believe in that sort of thing. All I know is each and every time I’ve had a dream like this, I’ve gained family. I’ve gained the most important people in my life. And I don’t take that lightly.” He paused, and added, because it needed to be said, “I’m sorry about your brother.”

The reaction was immediate. A torrent of emotions flashed across the girl’s face in the blink of an eye – bitterness, heartache, agony, but most of all anger – then buried itself underneath a cold mask. It was like watching a movie he’d seen a thousand times, this grief. He knew every tick, every tell. The five stages of grief were as familiar to him as his ABCs. He’d done it enough, seen it enough, been through it so many times that there was nothing, no reaction to it, that would surprise Steve anymore. Even still, when the lights hanging overhead suddenly flickered on and off, as if reacting to the girl’s reactions, Steve almost had to revise his thoughts. He could see that it made the girl even angrier, as if she hated losing even that little bit of control over herself. It was unfortunate that Peggy had gotten off on such a wrong foot with Wanda; the two already had so much in common.

“You’re safe with us,” Steve assured. “We aren’t going to hurt you.”

Wanda hesitated, looking off-kilter, in small significant ways. One moment her eyes were blazing with cold fury, the next she was watching Steve warily like he was an animal that she couldn’t decide was a wolf or a puppy. Strangest of all was that she had not moved yet, she had not asked for his name, had not asked about how he’d found her or how he knew about her brother. Normally these questions would come up, like it did every other time he had done this before. When they first discovered Sam among the slain in Napoleons’ army, Sam had talked everyone’s ear off for nearly two days before he’d exhausted his list of questions. Bucky had threatened to deliver him to the French enemies’ camp if he didn’t shut up. 

Wanda, with the benefit of her telepathy, had already leapfrogged beyond the basic questions. She was still confused, though. And suspicious.

“C’mon,” he motioned. “You must be hungry. There’s food in the other room.”

“The… the other woman,” Wanda spoke, hesitating. “…Peggy?”

“Yeah, don’t worry about her. She’ll play nice.”

Wanda only offered, doubtfully, “You didn’t see what I put her through. How do I know—”

“She’ll play nice,” Steve promised. “Just don’t do it again.”

Wanda paused. “She’s the oldest?”

If Wanda had gotten familiar enough with his memories to pick up on that, she’d probably picked up on a lot. Plus, if he understood things correctly, Wanda had read enough of Peggy’s mind to do a number on her. 

After a quick beat, Steve nodded. “Peggy is the oldest.”

“How old?”

“She was with the Romans, back in the day.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“Not quite that old, but close,” he offered. He lifted off onto his feet. “C’mon, if you’re not hungry, I sure am.”

By mutual agreement, Peggy had left the house, waiting outside until Steve would give her the all clear. He imagined she was using the moment to clear her head, shore up her defenses until they were reinforced and battle-ready yet again. He didn’t allow himself to focus on the thought. The sun was rising on a new day, and Steve brought out what served as breakfast for Wanda. Peggy had found it quaint, to be packing breakfast materials when they’d been stocking up for a raid into a Hydra facility. Steve had just been planning for the best-case scenario.

He wouldn’t have been surprised if Wanda had eaten with her fingers and licked her bowl clean, but her manners were impeccable. A hair finer, actually, than Natasha’s; there was a gracefulness in the way she held herself that impressed Steve, especially when he considered how long it must have been last since she’d eaten anything. From the way the hospital clothes hung off her, she was all skin and bones.

Wanda finally broke the hush after ten minutes of eating in silence. “So, we really never die?” she asked, so quietly, he almost didn’t hear it.

He sighed. “Nothing that lives, lives forever.”

“But,” she began, confused, “you said immortal—”

“I know what I said,” Steve cut in. “And mostly we are, but we—we _can_ die. One of us did, actually.” Steve stopped, needing a moment to breathe, thinking of Dugan on that cold ground, bleeding out and confused. Even joking, to the very last minute, even as reality was setting in. Steve had been the only one with Dugan, in the end. “One day your wounds just don’t heal up anymore. We don’t know when, or why.”

“There was only one who died?” 

He shook his head. “There was another, before my time. Dottie. Only Peggy knew her, but she—vanished, into thin air. Long before my time. Me and the others never dreamed about her, so we figure… she must have actually died at some point. We have no way of knowing.”

Steve couldn’t offer much else. Peggy never really talked about Dottie. She had loved her, for sure. Been in love with her, even. But the details were always sparse.

“It’s a lot to understand,” Peggy announced, suddenly, from behind. The girl whirled, caught off guard, and Peggy looked tired, the color still washed out from her cheeks. Nevertheless, she gave Wanda a tight nod, as welcoming as she could manage. “You don’t have to wrap your head around it all tonight. It’ll be too much to take in.”

But Wanda was watching Peggy with naked curiosity in her eyes. “This other one – Dottie. You genuinely do not know what happened to her?”

Peggy paused, looking unsurprised by the question. “Some things in life, you never get answers to. You grieve. You move on.”

The girl looked away. “You had a child, too.”

Steve had been expecting this, although not quite so bluntly. He answered so Peggy wouldn’t have to. “We’ve had many over the years. Sarah was our latest. The youngest to—” he looked away. “You learn to cope, after a while.”

“To death?” Wanda said, incredulous. “To losing your loved ones over and over again? To living out eternity as a ghost?”

“We’re not the ghosts,” Peggy answered, tightly.

Wanda had tears in her eyes. “No, everyone else is.”

Steve decided to be kind and end the conversation there. It wouldn’t lead anywhere good. “You need to rest. Peggy’s right. You don’t have to wrap your head around it all tonight.” He paused, trying to redirect the discussion into less treacherous waters. “Showers in the back. We’ve got some spare clothes that’ll fit you, more or less.”

The girl looked suddenly every inch of her sixteen years, and it pained Steve physically to see such a youthful face look so utterly horrified and wronged, like she already knew more of this world’s horror than most and wasn’t looking forward to an eternity of it. She tore away from the kitchen counter and sprinted into the back room, and Steve wasn’t surprised in the slightest by the sound of the slamming door. 

“Like I said,” Peggy whispered, tiredly. “She’s just a child.”

#


	5. Chapter 5

#

Bucky felt like a kid being grounded, staying at the bunker with Natasha and Sam so they could make preparations for the newbie. Although, in Bucky’s opinion, there was no real preparations to be made. The extra bed was acquired easily. Natasha furnished some additional clothes for the girl, the same brand and make that she herself wore – black fatigues and matching tank top, as if the mere introduction of color was an affront to the eyes (not that Bucky had any issues with the way Natasha dressed, especially when he was the one that got to undress her at night). There were other items – a tablet, a pair of burner phones, comfortable shoes in three different sizes because they didn’t know what size she wore. The rest of their supplies (four different types of high explosives, kevlar vests, riot gear, among so much else) were already in the bunker. Natasha had gone overboard on provisions once the plan to break out Steve (and then, all of a sudden, Peggy) had been hashed out.

Sam was only just starting to work up fake documents based upon what little they knew of Wanda, forging credentials and a backstory. Sam tended to get away with himself if left to his own devices. Bucky had never forgiven him after once being forced to fake an Indian accent after Sam had insisted on an alias originating from Goa. Bucky could sometimes fake an accent, but even he acknowledged he was, as Sam had once so eloquently put it, _the_ _whitest white boy that ever whited, second only to Steve_. Bucky and Natasha usually stuck around to reign in Sam’s imagination when long term backgrounds were being prepped. Sometimes, it worked. Other times, they somehow fed into Sam’s madness. 

When Sam got a call from Steve, getting an update on the newbie situation, Bucky had the feeling this might be one of those times where madness was involved. “Telepath?” Sam said, to Steve over the phone. “For real?”

Bucky’s ears perked up. “I’m sorry, what did you say? Telepath?”

Sam offered an incredulous look of his own. “The new girl. She can read people’s minds.”

“You’re joking.”

“If I am, Steve’s in on it too and you know he has no sense of humor—” there was the nebulous sound of offended protests over the phone, but Sam spoke over it, “—and he’s straight up telling me she took down Peggy.”

“What do you mean by _took down_?” Bucky asked.

“ _Whammied_ ,” Sam said, with emphasis. 

Natasha strode over and snatched the phone from Sam’s hands. “Steve? Yeah, these two idiots are going on about telepathy.” She paused for a bit, then nodded. “Right,” she said, impassively. “Okay, got it. We’ll be ready when you guys get here.”

She hung up. 

Bucky stared at her. “What’d Steve say?”

“She’s a telepath,” Natasha affirmed flatly, sounding unconcerned.

It was, in their life, not the most outrageous thing, but Bucky thought it still deserved a beat to acknowledge. They had some experience with telepaths, after all, and none of it pleasant. Sometime in October of 1653, in Exeter, they ran across a sorceress – an honest to god sorceress – that could manipulate people’s minds and memories. She’d burned at the stake, as did, horrifically, both Natasha and Peggy. Back then it’d been easy to brand any woman as a witch, the punishment varying from incarceration to death, often meted out by the biggest power-hungry bigot in the village. In this one instance, though, there had been a _real_ sorceress, and Natasha and Peggy had been swept up in the wake.

Bucky could still remember the twisted revulsion in his stomach when he’d pulled Natasha off the pyre, that autumn day in the backwaters of England, the smell of burnt flesh and hair so odorous in his nostrils that he might’ve heaved afterwards. Natasha didn’t remember much of the day, thank god. He suspected Peggy did, although he never built up the courage to ask. Bucky just remembered the weeks afterwards, feeling off-balance and violated in ways he hadn’t felt after dying hundreds of other deaths himself. There was something different – _worse_ – about someone being tortured in such a gruesome way as fire, especially people you loved. He hadn’t let Natasha out of his sight for nearly a month afterwards, and that was _before_ they had even been romantically involved.

And now, this girl, Wanda, had telepathy – which just brought about a wave of unwelcomed memories when he sat down to think about it. Sam, who hadn’t been there when they’d last tangoed with a telepath, and had only heard the story once in passing, probably didn’t understand why Bucky was suddenly in a mood. It wasn’t that Bucky was scared of the girl, or even too concerned of what the girl could do. It was more about what everyone else would do. As much as Bucky thought the world had moved beyond witch hunts, history tended to move in circles and twists, if not outright backpedals. He had seen progression progress only so far before it rebounded into fascism or dogmatic tendencies, like a rubber band snapping back into place. 

Wanda would spell complications in the future. He would bet money on it.

The day wasted away, but it was just after five o’clock when Bucky got a text from an old contact of his. It was cryptic and only mentioned Shield intel, but the contact had never led him astray before. A meeting was arranged quickly, and although it was hardly a meeting that required the company of both Natasha and Sam, there was a sense of itchy tetchiness hanging in the air. Everyone hated just waiting. He doubted Sam had gotten any sleep since dreaming about Wanda, and he knew Natasha hadn’t. Everyone was eager for just something to do, even if it was just a meeting with some harmless low-level snitch.

“Let me drive,” Sam said.

“Hell, no,” Bucky returned. “We don’t stay dead, but no need to court our own decapitations on the New Jersey turnpike.”

“That’s a defeatist attitude, man. Plus, I’m not that bad. Nat, tell him I’m not that bad.”

“The both of you are shit-horrible drivers, I’m driving,” she insisted.

No one really argued with Natasha when she declared something like that. They got in, and because the subject of Wanda was not far from their thoughts at any given moment, Natasha said, “What do you think it’ll be like, with a teenager around?”

Sam shrugged. “You’ve been dealing with Bucky for forever. A teenager requires much the same supervision, I expect.”

“I’m insulted and that’s probably also true,” Bucky piped up, settling in the back.

They loaded up in the SUV, and it wasn’t talked about, but Bucky knew all three of them were thinking about it – about the first days as an immortal, the pain and confusion that Wanda must be going through. He knew from Steve’s account that the girl was calm after the initial attack and had taken to following Steve and Peggy’s directions reluctantly, if only because of a lack of other viable options. But Bucky remembered the first few days, the haze of disorientation. He needed something to do just to keep his mind off it, but it didn’t really take, even as Natasha drove through traffic at a crawl speed for the meet that should occupy at least a decent portion of his thoughts.

But Bucky was chasing the rabbit down its hole, reminiscing about the life and times of the newly undying. Bucky, himself, had been left on his own to wander for nearly a decade before Steve first found him in 1530 in the outskirts of Düsseldorf, the German Peasant War still raging on. By then, Bucky had given himself over to an unending hell, intending to live and die, and die, and die, fighting alone. He hadn’t settled down and stayed with his family, although that had been an option. Bucky had died of the plague that first time, but he’d been buried among a mass grave of soldiers and no one had bothered to sort out the names properly. When he’d come back, he’d had to dig himself out of his own shallow grave full of a god-awful decaying stench and rotting bodies. 

He could’ve returned home to his sisters and his Ma. They’d wanted him to. But people had already started talking about Bucky by then, noticing that he kept taking hits and getting back up, so he left his post, his home, his family. And then he traveled, rootless and aimless and actively avoiding anything and everyone who'd ever known him. 

It was almost funny, the first time Steve found him, a sodden, alcoholic mess on the ground, the way the words _hello, brother_ fell from Steve’s lips in German so naturally, the sentiment behind it so fitting; Bucky had recognized the face from years of dreams, and Peggy was standing at the back, too, under the archway of the door. _We’ve been looking for you._

“We’re here,” Natasha announced.

They took a moment to get a lay of the land, guns at the ready, just in case. It was an old factory out in the middle of nowhere. Sam and Bucky ran the perimeter to confirm there was no one around, the only evidence of his contact’s arrival the lone motorcycle in the back lot. They took the raised platform into the building, and inside, there was the main entryway, a hallway to a large open floor that sat empty, and the stairway to a second floor. Bucky counted three additional exits, aside from the one he’d just entered through: a service elevator for large shipping supplies; a marked emergency exit in the back; and the second flight of stairs that must have led up to the administrative rooms. 

“Where is your contact?” Sam asked.

“Must be on the second floor.”

He led up the flight of stairs, and they pushed through the door one-by-one, flanking in formation into a seemingly empty room. 

A second too late, Bucky realized his mistake. 

A hail of gunfire erupted before Bucky could even get a shot off. They were like fish in a barrel. The room lit up as a barrage of bullets hit Bucky, Sam, and Natasha simultaneously, striking the chests, the legs, the arms, their entire bodies. Bucky felt like a marionette dancing in the air as the slugs riddled his bodies, and then suddenly the strings were cut, his body hitting the floor. 

“Room clear,” someone shouted.

Blackness enveloped Bucky, and he stopped breathing. And then he came back shortly, in the ticking seconds passing by, gasping in pain, spitting out a bullet between his teeth. With a groan, he felt his muscles start to expel the bullets, and Bucky did his best to make sense of his surroundings even as his body mended itself with agonizing recovery. Sam was on one side, several bullets to his chest, at least one to the neck. Natasha, on the other side, had hemorrhaging bloodshot eyes, her mouth bleeding too, pale lips painted crimson red. It took a few seconds for the muscles to readjust, for the bullets to eject, for the wounds to mend.

Bucky slowly stood, as did the others, cracking their bones and groaning angrily.

The shooting squad on the other side of the room stood, dazed. “What the fu—”

The Old Winter Soldiers attacked.

#

From Sokovia, it was up to Frankfurt and then, finally, one day later, the last leg of the trip back to New York. Steve was glad there wasn’t any layover. He was eager to get back to the others, and he felt particularly tired and worn out in a way that only a specific combination of stress, jetlag, and post-battle nerves could wrangle together. Peggy and Wanda had warmed to each other only by inches rather than miles, and he knew, despite her claims to the contrary, Peggy was still dealing with the aftereffects of whatever Wanda had done to her. Peggy was making a good effort to overcome it, but Steve knew her well enough to see the stilted answers and the stiff movements. He was sure Wanda noticed it, too. 

“What else do I need to know?” Wanda asked, as they deboarded the plane into the cool night air. 

“Not much else,” Peggy answered. “We’ve told you the basic info about the others. You’ll have to meet them to learn the rest, as their personalities are best dealt with in person rather than in description.”

Steve stopped at the empty runway, frowning when he didn’t see anyone waiting for them. “They should have been here by now.”

“Traffic?” Wanda offered, idly.

Steve didn’t say it, but there was no way the group wouldn’t have been on time to meet Wanda. He knew the restless impatience they were experiencing. His frown deepened, and he exchanged a look with Peggy, before remembering that they were now chaperoning a traumatized teenager and didn’t need to freak her out.

“What’s wrong?” Wanda said, ever preceptive. 

It was one of the things he’d noticed already, even when she didn’t have her fingers digging in people’s minds; she understood and comprehended a great deal with simply a glance. 

They waited a while, but after half an hour, Steve declared, “Looks like we got a walk ahead of us.” He figured the bunker was fifteen, maybe sixteen miles from the airfield. He rooted out a bottle of water from his bag, and handed it to Wanda. “Drink up.”

“Can’t we just call for a ride?” Wanda said; she sounded displeased and whiny in a way that was suddenly just a teenager threatened with physical labor, rather than some otherworldly clairvoyant. “The trip has been long enough, has it not?”

“We stay below radar,” Peggy told her, on the same page as Steve. “We walk if we have to, and right now, we have to.”

He wondered if Wanda would ever realize how good she had it, spoiled by cars. He’d spent more years than he could count on the road, with nothing but his feet to make the journey. He’d walked the world over several times, probably, not to mention the miles he put on horses or camels. Peggy was used to that more than anyone, and she set the march at a brisk pace, up front. Wanda trailed both of them in the back, frowning heavily as they set down the road. 

At some point, Steve joined Peggy up front, walking side by side as the sullen teenager brought up the rear. Wanda appeared lost in her own thoughts, and he knew she was handling the transition better than most, better than was expected, anyway. Still, he was concerned.

“What do you think?” Steve asked Peggy, quietly.

“I think she’s headstrong and obstinate,” Peggy answered, knowing instinctively what he was asking. “I think she thinks she has something to prove to everyone else, and she’s angry and scared, but she’d never admit to the latter.”

“Thus far she’s sounding like she’ll fit in with you and Natasha like peas in a pod.”

Peggy’s stern face collapsed into a near-eyeroll at Steve’s teasing, a little warmth returning to her face. But then she sighed. “I also think,” she said, gravely, “she might be more powerful than anyone else I’ve ever met in my entire life.”

That nearly stopped Steve dead in his tracks. Wanda was powerful, no doubt. He knew it and had witnessed enough of the power to be a little reverent, if not outright concerned, about what the girl could do. But for Peggy to size her up and have quickly assessed the girl to be the most powerful person Peggy had ever met in her long and very complicated life, it was no small wonder. Once again, Steve found himself wondering what had happened during Wanda’s assault on Peggy – what the vision had shown Peggy of their lost child – but he knew asking about it would only close Peggy off again, and she had only just started reemerging out her self-imposed shell again.

But while Steve was busy studying Peggy, trying to dissect something he couldn’t even outline, Peggy had been busy scrutinizing Steve. “You’ve changed,” she told him.

Steve lifted an eyebrow up. “Have I?”

She nodded. “It would be impossible not to, after being apart for so long, but I’m still adjusting to the differences.”

“Like what?”

She paused, and he could tell she was heavily censoring the answer before she spoke. “Your chest-to-waist ratio has gotten even more ridiculous, if one can believe it.”

He gave a sharp, quick laugh. It was a deflection, but underlaced with flirtation, so he would take it. They moved down the road silently, and Wanda had taken the opportunity to trail at an even farther distance than she had begun, coming up behind them with more than thirty or so feet of space between them. He wondered if the girl was purposely trying to give them space, or if she was just trailing sullenly at the speed she preferred. Either option, he realized, was equally likely.

“How have I changed?” Peggy asked, suddenly.

“What?”

“Me,” Peggy answered softly, setting Steve’s pulse racing for reasons he couldn’t define. “How have I changed?”

He regarded her with a solemn look. “You haven’t.”

Peggy turned to him in disbelief. “You can’t be serious. It’s been seventy years, Steve.”

“Your hair is longer,” he answered, shrugging. Steve shoved his hands in his pant pockets and looked down at his feet. “Your clothes too, I guess—”

“Oh, very funny, Steve Rogers. The height of comedy.”

But he was being entirely serious. He peeked sidelong at her, as if risking a full stare would give too much away. “What do you want me to say, Peg?”

“How about the truth?”

If she wanted the truth, then he would give it to her – unvarnished.

He planted his feet firmly on the ground, and pivoted to face her fully, forcing Peggy to stop too. “You’re stubborn, Peg, but you’ve always been stubborn. You’re self-reliant to a fault, and you hold yourself to a higher standard than everyone else. Again, more of the same. You still tap your fingers when you’re nervous, or as close to nervous as you allow yourself to get anymore. You’re still horrible at small talk. You still walk like you’re marching into battle. You keep your secrets guarded close to your chest, but I long ago realized the secrets you tend to keep the longest are the ones meant to prevent hurting others. Even if it is painfully misguided in some ways.” He stopped, forcing himself to take a deep breath, before he admitted, “You’re still the same woman I have always loved, through and through. Nothing’s changed.”

He could not define it beyond a smattering of small, almost inconsequential changes, the way the wind blew her hair in front of her eyes, which were blooming with a warmth he recognized from too many nights lost in tangled sheets; the way her cheeks warmed and her lips fell open, pink and parted with a small breath escaping; the longing he could see in her build and hold. The moment stood between them, shivering and electric, and Peggy looked overwhelmed. 

“ _Steve_ ,” she whispered, and he knew he’d cracked her armor.

He knew she was suddenly indefensible against him, as sure as he knew what she looked like when she fell apart under his thrusts from an orgasm that built and razed her down. Steve wanted very much to kiss her, right then, to kiss her like he’d wanted to all this time, with heat and intent, with a demand of that forever they had promised each other centuries ago. If he began, he would not stop, he would not slow down, not for all the other pleasures in the world, because the cold night air suddenly felt warm, and he wanted nothing more than to urgently press Peggy onto the nearest flat surface and fuck her senseless. Steve wasn’t a vulgar man, but he abruptly realized what would happen when he and Peggy finally rekindled their relationship, even just from a first kiss. Their first time wouldn’t be a slow exploration, a rekindling of love making. There would be love, surely, but there would be desperation, immediacy, and _need._ Reclaiming a physical connection that had been denied for years, for far too long. 

Except now wasn’t the time. Now, it rather felt like Wanda was chaperoning them rather than the other way around. All he could risk was raising her hand to his lips, where he pressed a kiss to her knuckles, heated eyes locked on hers, promising everything he couldn’t say or do with a brutish look. He released her hands reluctantly and forced himself to resume walking again. 

Peggy, standing shell-shocked and stiff as a board behind him, apparently needed a moment to find her legs.

#


	6. Chapter 6

#

Peggy frowned. The bunker didn’t look empty when they finally arrived well past midnight. The sitting SUV out front had a barrage of bullet holes down one end of it, clearly telling a story. Peggy exchanged a fraught look with Steve, but neither said a word. Jetlagged, tired from the march, they pushed past the front doors in silence.

The elevator ride down was hushed. Wanda stood in the front, tapping her foot impatiently. Peggy sympathized with the teenager’s overwrought, sagging energy, but Peggy was also preoccupied. The elevator was only so large, and Steve had taken to standing right at Peggy’s side, as he’d been all night, close enough for her to smell his aftershave, a forever shadow that she couldn’t – and didn’t seem to want to – shake. The heightened awareness of his presence was trying under their recent circumstances, but tonight she felt something else, an atmosphere she blamed entirely on his little declaration out on the open road. And more so, she knew, on everything he’d left unsaid with the accompanying dark hooded look he’d given her, a look that she could deconstruct only too well. 

The elevator door finally opened, and Wanda let out a relieved sigh and stepped inside. The sound of distant arguing immediately greeted them.

“—still can’t believe you didn’t vet your contact,” Sam was saying.

“I vetted him,” Bucky hissed. “He was plenty vetted!”

“Tell that to umpteenth bullet hole in my shirt,” Sam protested. “I stopped counting after the twelfth one.”

“That’s simply because you can’t count any higher,” Bucky replied. “And quite complaining about your wardrobe. It isn’t anything special.”

“I’m not taking fashion advice from a man who wears a _manbun._ ”

“ _Guys_ ,” Natasha snapped, bringing the bickering to a halt. “We have company.”

Everyone stood up, and Peggy raised an eyebrow at the state of Natasha, Bucky, and Sam, in various stages of undress, all bloodied and irritated. It was obvious there had been a recent firefight, a skirmish that had been plenty brutal if the bloodstains and the ‘umpteenth’ bullet holes said anything. None of them seemed to be aware of the image they presented; they were too busy staring at Wanda with the same jolt of surprise that she was wearing staring back at them.

“Guys,” Steve introduced. “This is Wanda.”

Wanda stood straight but stared awkwardly. “Hello.”

Peggy asked the obvious question of the trio. “What happened?”

“Not sure,” Natasha answered, sighing. “We got ambushed meeting a contact of Bucky. Special ops of some kind, possibly Delta Force. A team of six.”

“Any intel on who they are or what they wanted?” Steve asked, brow furrowed.

Natasha shook her head. “We didn’t get the chance to ask before we had to return fire. No IDs. Nothing on their bodies, not even tattoos. But they had Heckler & Koch MP5, and Casio G-Shock watches set to military time. I’m working on leads.”

Peggy filed that away for later. “I’m presuming that’s why you didn’t meet us at the airport?”

“We got waylaid,” Natasha offered with a nod. She crossed the room and held out her hand for Wanda. “I’m Natasha,” she said, as the two shook hands. “You can call me Nat. That’s Sam over there, and Bucky.”

“Pleasure,” Wanda said, trying not to sound uncomfortable. When Wanda pulled her hand free, Natasha’s blood was on her palm. “You’re the ballerina?”

Natasha’s smile faltered almost imperceptibly. “Not for a long while.”

Peggy and Steve exchanged a look. As neither of them had mentioned Natasha’s past as a dancer as it was a sore spot, Peggy could only assume it was one of those things Wanda picked up through her dreams or her telepathy. 

Peggy watched the team huddle around to greet the newcomer and took a step back. Between the time change, the exhaustion of running nonstop for days now, and the unshakeable funk that came with international travel, Peggy felt in no shape to join in the welcome wagon. She wanted to get a shower, mostly, but as had been most of the night, when she turned, Steve was right _there,_ behind her, and she collided roughly with his chest. His hands shot to her waist, steadying her with a pressure and a grip that was hardly necessary, and certainly distracting. 

She excused herself and left for the back rooms. The place had already been cramped living conditions, but now with the addition of Wanda, she knew it’d only get worse. She showered quick, while it was available, and came back out to the living room to find dinner being passed around, along with a bottle of jack.

“She’s underage,” Peggy warned.

Wanda raised an eyebrow. “In Sokovia, the age of drinking is fifteen. And I was drinking well before that.”

“Well, that must be nice for Sokovia,” Steve said, in a no-nonsense tone that made it clear she wouldn’t get away with that here.

“We were just telling her war stories,” Sam told Peggy, bypassing Wanda to toss the bottle to Natasha. “Specifically, when Bucky tried to employ his legendary cooking skills to try and feed us in Kazan. Remember in – what was it, 1842? Something went wrong with the beans, and it produced the most astonishing gastronomical outbursts anyone of us has ever heard. We thought the enemies could zero in on us just because of the noise.”

“That wasn’t my fault,” Bucky protested. “Thirty seconds out in the cold made the food almost frozen. There were side-effects.”

Peggy shook her head. This was what had been missing when it’d just been Steve and Peggy with Wanda. The easy-going low intensity banter that could put a teenager at ease with flatulence jokes. The boys always had a way of making everything into a laugh. Peggy remembered Kazan, too – and all she would have mentioned were the mercenaries, or maybe the Russians fighting back, or maybe the cold bitter forest a few thousand kilometers away from Moscow where the soldiers found them – the soldiers that shot them with muskets, the soldiers that blew them up with cannons. 

The ease of the conversation flowed around Peggy as she went to the small kitchen counter and pulled out a plate for food. It was spaghetti, unfortunately, which Peggy wasn’t a fan of, but she wouldn’t complain. She took out a heaping slop and reached overhead for an accompanying glass, but the only remaining tumbler was on a shelf that was obscenely high, and she couldn’t quite reach it. After a beat of futile stretching, Peggy felt a familiar presence at her back; Steve reached up behind her, easily grabbing the offending glass with a brushing proximity that made Peggy’s breath catch in her throat. He brought it down to set on the counter, and then stretched across her, arm ghosting across her back, to grab a plate too. 

He walked around her with his hand trailing over her hip. She knew what he was doing. He could have easily stepped back to get what he needed, but Steve had seemed to have taken her lack of protests as permission to invade her personal space whenever he wanted now, a shift from his earlier deference because, _damn it,_ he knew her unspoken signals, even the ones she didn’t want known. He knew he’d wormed his way past her defenses. And she _should_ have protested – she knew she had no right otherwise, not when she was hiding so many secrets – but it was hard to muster up the conviction when her body betrayed her at his ever-diminishing proximity.

They were courting disaster. She was sure of it. She was just as sure that his off-white Henley shirt and the pair of workman jeans he wore should have been a crime worth arresting because of its ability to impair judgement. It had been so _long_ since she’d felt a touch of a man, and longer even since that man was Steve Rogers. For all his moral virtues, behind closed doors Steve was as inventive as he was brazen in his sexual exploits. Over the centuries they had both discovered there was little that he would not do, or enjoy, if she was up for it. And for all her penchants for control, in the bedroom was certainly one aspect of her life where Peggy was more than happy to let up the reins. Steve Rogers in control, after all, was and would always be a magnificent sight. 

Her body felt jittery with nerves, and she forced herself to exhale it out with some composure as she joined the others for a late dinner.

The midnight dinner turned even later, well into the hours before dawn. As the group shared stories and welcomed Wanda with clear open arms, the teenager started to relax, inch by inch. The hours passed comfortably as Sam told stories about Colombia, Natasha and Bucky entertained them all with details with their favorite mission in Budapest, and even Steve regaled them with one story that Peggy didn’t even know about – Havana, during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The quick history and quicker laughter surrounding the table was almost enough to completely overshadow the reality they were all living; the one that ignored how Sam and Natasha still bore clothing covered in bullet-riddled holes; the one that disregarded Bucky’s pink-flushed ring finger on his left hand, a clear sign that it had been blown clean off earlier in the day and had regrown.

“So,” Wanda said, at the end of the long night. “You all just… choose to continue to fight.”

“We’re warriors,” Natasha answered. “It’s what we’re meant to do.”

“Says who?” Wanda asked. 

“Us,” Bucky answered, throwing an arm behind Natasha’s shoulders as they shared a fond look. “We decided that long ago.”

“If you want to be technical,” Natasha replied wryly, “ _Peggy_ decided that long ago. We all just came to agree.”

Peggy cleared her throat a little, neither acknowledging nor disagreeing. But everyone knew she’d been on a mission long before she’d stumbled upon Steve, before they picked up either Bucky or Natasha, before they’d roped in Sam. 

“C’mon Peg,” Bucky said, and poured out shots for everyone across the table. “Give her the old moto. Wanda’s never heard it before.”

Peggy rolled her eyes. “Nor does she need to. It’ll make little sense to her.”

Everyone at the table groaned and protested, and Peggy almost snorted a laugh, raising a hand in defeat. She cleared her throat. _“Vivamus, Moriendum Est,”_ Peggy said solemnly, staring at Wanda. _“Bono Malum Superate, Permitte Divis Cetera.”_

Peggy raised a shot of vodka (the bottle of jack had long run out), saluting the old adage, and everyone except Wanda toasted and slammed back a shot. Peggy set the small shot glass back on the table as the liquid burned down her throat, locking eyes with Steve across the table. She felt flushed – almost drunk. Certainly buzzed, at the very least. The look Steve threw her made her feel even warmer.

“What does that mean?” Wanda asked, perhaps the only sober person in the room now.

“Let us live, for we must die,” Peggy answered, delivering the old Latin saying in the closest English approximation. “Overcome evil with good, and leave all else to the gods.”

She was still staring at Steve. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen him this relaxed, lounging on the corner cushioned chair, one booted foot set up on the table in front of him and the other foot planted on the ground. Certainly, he had not been this at ease in the last few days. And neither could Peggy remember the last time that she’d allowed herself to relax enough to become even a little bit inebriated. The alcohol had been passed along a little too freely around the table, perhaps. 

“An old Roman saying?” Wanda said, eyebrow lifted.

Unthinkingly Thor sprang to mind, and Peggy said, wiping her mouth, “You should hear some of the Viking sayings. They’re just as inspirational.”

She felt Steve’s stare on her. “Viking?” he asked, surprise warming his voice. “Since when do you know anything about the Vikings?”

Peggy froze; she’d said too much. She hadn’t meant to hint at Thor, or anything related to Project Rebirth. She would never have even slipped up that much if it hadn’t been for the flavor of vodka in her mouth. Frowning, Peggy waved off the question with a shrug, but she knew by Steve’s riveted attention that he’d seen her slip up. He knew her too well. 

Wanda cracked a wide yawn. “As illuminating as this has been, I am tired. I need to rest.”

“I’ll show you your things,” Natasha offered, taking the girl under her wings. 

They left the clean-up for the morning, everyone dispersing into their own corners. Steve took the next turn at the shower, because he was always quick and left plenty of hot water for people after him. Peggy returned to their shanty little room, eyeing the one small bed with distrust and suspicion. It wouldn’t be like their first night together – Peggy knew that much. There was too much left unsaid between them, but Peggy also knew that it would soon reach the boiling point. 

The writing was on the wall, especially because Peggy didn’t feel much like fighting it anymore. Steve Rogers had not only been her longest lover, but he’d far outpaced everyone else because she loved him beyond measure as well. 

But alongside the anticipation under her skin, there was _guilt_ , and Peggy frowned, wishing for a clearer head. As much as she wanted Steve, her near Thor-sized slip-up had been a sobering moment. 

Peggy was lying to them all. By omission, of course, but a lie was a lie. She was hiding quite a bit, actually. She’d been on her own for so long, and for so much of that, she’d been a spy where obfuscation was a pointed criterion for any given day. But she’d never wanted to lie to her family, and certainly not to Steve. 

Project Rebirth was… complicated, though.

Like most things in her life, it was _horrifically_ complicated. Peggy had no intentions to speak up and plainly tell the truth, but the more time passed with Steve and the others, the more she realized how less tenable her secrets could be managed. It was one thing when she’d kept herself apart and avoided them, as she’d done for seventy years. But now, here, living under the same roof again, it would not hold. When they found out, the others would see this as a betrayal – and Peggy was sure it would be _when_ , not _if_ , for Peggy knew they’d all live long enough for the truth to be discovered, whether it was tomorrow or a hundred years from now. Steve, especially, would be hurt by the secrets. 

Hurt, by her decision to contemplate ending her immortality.

It wasn’t a choice made lightly. It wasn’t something that she realized _could_ be in her control, and it hadn’t been – until recently, when Dr. Erskine found her in 1964 and told her about the others; or when Howard started funding the project in the seventies; or when they started to make _real_ progress only in the twenty-first century with the implications of the global human genome project. They were close to a cure. A cure for immortality – or a final life and a final death, as Peggy preferred to think of it. Dr. Erskine was close to finishing it, and its accompanying serum – what he’d taken to calling the _super-soldier serum_ , one that would convey the gift of immortality to its recipient, rather than letting fate bestow it upon whatever warrior it saw fit. He was very close to finishing his life’s pursuit, which made Peggy closer to the realization that she might never have to live to bury another child of hers ever again. 

When Steve had broken her out of Shield’s custody, he’d thrown everything into a tailspin. Peggy had been wrapping up only a few things at Shield when Hydra had reared its ugly head and made turbulence in her life. But now that she was here, she could not unwind the last few days even if she wanted to. She had to deal with Steve, and Bucky, Natasha, and Sam. Not to mention Wanda, who’d only just gained her immortality. They had a right to know, and Peggy had always planned on telling them, but only _after_ the cure was finalized. Only _after_ there was something more than experimental failures.

Now, more and more, she wasn’t sure she had the option.

Steve emerged from the bathroom, clean-shaven now, in a pair of jeans and a sleeveless undershirt, drying his hair with a towel. The action made his hair stick up on ends and drew her attention to his nicely toned arms, both of which were distracting measures. 

She closed the door behind him, and said, “We need to talk.” She pushed the meager lock into place, hearing it click, and turned around, opening her mouth, intending to pull the bandage off quickly.

Instead, the immediate jolt of a hot mouth covering hers had Peggy's eyes flying open in shock. He crowded her up against the door with expert steadying hands, and his body pressed against hers, disallowing any slack, making all thought-processes falter. Instinct took over as Peggy’s eyes slid shut, letting his mouth overtake hers, settling her hand against his chest and the other at his neck, where her thumb stroked against his sharp jawline until she felt dizzy and breathless. He nipped at her lower lip, and Peggy moaned.

Her knees threatened to falter, the ground underneath as unsteady as an earthquake, and she felt every last thing she'd been denying herself rush back to life—and he kissed her greedily, too, sliding his thigh between her legs, forcing her slender frame to stay trapped against the wall. His hands found her waist and jerked her down hard against his knee, giving her pressure, friction, exactly where she wanted it. She recognized his body with dizzying and instant familiarity, and he’d clearly been waiting only for a moment of privacy, a signal from her, to make good on his earlier intentions. He’d taken the clicking of the door lock as his signal. 

Peggy cursed to herself, trying to remind herself of the importance of talking first, of Steve’s potentially and entirely justified grievances, even as she moaned against his lips. 

Instead, she hitched her leg up, over his thigh. The clothing between the two of them did nothing to keep the heat of Steve away from her, and she sank onto his leg with a moan, knowing he was hardening against her thigh, knowing just as well he would soon feel her eager wetness too.

Peggy felt her shirt being lifted up and off, her curls landing back with a bounce on her shoulders before Steve returned, fever-pitched, cupping, licking, stroking, until her nerves felt on fire and her mind reeled. She wasn’t wearing a bra, and Steve had always had an intense fascination with her breasts. He lowered his head to take a nipple between his lips, carrying the weight of one breast fully into his mouth, and she moaned his name, urging him on by wrapping a leg around his waist. 

He rewarded her by sliding his hand inside the waistband of her panties. He slid two fingers against her slickness, and a noise escaped Peggy’s lips, mouth falling open; his answering smile against her chest should have made her cross, should have made her mutter something about arrogance or cheekiness, but all she could do was clutch at his shoulders. She wanted more pressure where his fingers were sliding against her heat, more firmness – just _more_. She was making stupid, moaning noises too, not that she cared.

“I've missed those _sounds_ ,” he breathed against her neck, filthily, “riding my hand like this, whimpering for me.”

He kissed her again, hot and wet and shockingly demanding. His hand’s ministrations were trapped by her restricting jeans, though. Steve broke off his kiss long enough to groan in frustration, shoving the jeans down with his other hand, yanking them free of her legs. He kissed her again, sloppily, urgency as appealing as his desire, quickly fucking his fingers into her slippery heat. She dropped her forehead onto his shoulder and panted his name against his collarbone, fingers balled up in his shirt. 

But then he pulled her head back, grabbing it roughly by the hair, so that she had to lock eyes with him as he worked her up into a frenzy.

Steve stared down at her, eyes greedily soaking in the sight of her, and she knew the picture she presented – hair disheveled, lips swollen, pupils blown with want, breath coming out panting and heavy. She must have looked raw and needy – and Steve made the snap decision to relocate them.

When he pulled free his hand, she almost whimpered at the loss, but then he locked his arms around her firmly and lifted her like she weighed nothing at all. His strength had always been a turn on to a ridiculous extent, and Peggy felt herself settle on the mattress, before he reached back and peeled off his shirt. Peggy sat up, unbuckling his belt before he could get to it, placing light, teasing kisses and bites over his firm abdomen that had his stomach muscles jumping under her lips. By the time she’d stripped him of his jeans, leaving him in boxers, he was breathing hard – a massive bulge staring at her from eye-level. 

“Do you have condoms?” Peggy managed, swallowing thickly.

He nodded, stretching out over her, kissing her as his hand blindly reached for the bedside table. She could hear the sound of a drawer opening, but Peggy was too busy being kissed senseless to see how many condoms there were – hopefully enough that they could enjoy a few rounds. Steve had an appetite and refractory period that put most anyone else's stamina to shame.

Steve looked down at her, and after a beat, said in a voice hoarser than before, “I want to go down on you.”

Peggy couldn’t find her voice. She just nodded.

He drifted down her body, licking both breasts in turn, and then following a path down the center of her stomach. He shoved her legs apart. “If you would have told me that you just wanted to talk, and _meant_ it,” he offered teasingly, even as his touch was heavy, heated, “I would have fucking wept, Peg.”

But Peggy knew he would. She knew he’d stop on a dime if she told him.

Abruptly, overcome with a realization, she cursed and then flipped, using her body to push him back and under her. It was a maneuver that was meant more for combat than anything in the bedroom, and even with the size and strength of Steve, the sheer surprise of it had him pinned underneath her before he could protest. She moved down to straddle his waist, looking down at him behind a curtain of mussed hair.

“Stop,” she breathed. “We need to slow down. Stop.”

He looked utterly debauched under her, and equally confused. She wanted nothing more than to kiss him viciously, biting his soft lips, licking hungrily into his mouth. Or to let him crawl his way back down her body and start what she wanted so desperately for him to finish. 

But this wasn’t about what she wanted.

This was about what they needed, all of them.

Cursing, Peggy sat back heavily, hands planted against his chest to keep him flat on his back. 

“Peggy,” Steve breathed. “What—”

“There’s something I need to tell you,” she cut in. “But I need us to stop for a moment. Can you do that? I need to stop.”

“I—uh, yeah,” he said, bewildered.

If she wasn’t so hot and bothered in the moment, she might have found his confusion adorable. But there was nothing adorable about the situation, especially with her still straddling him across the waist and putting pressure against his stiffening dick. She should probably move off him, but she really, _really_ didn’t want to. She flickered through a half a dozen emotions at once: _aroused-unsure-angry-doubtful-frustrated-resentful_ , and it landed on _guilt_ , of all things. 

"God _fucking_ damn it," she snapped, falling off him and onto the side. She flopped down beside him, puffing out a frustrated and angry breath. “I swear to god, this is so stupid—I just, _bloody hell_.”

Beside him, Steve stayed very still and very quiet, clearly letting her process whatever she was going through. They stared at the ceiling for endless seconds. He waited, ultimately not pressing her for answers, and she should have been glad about that, because spending the night together was just going to make the upcoming revelation all that much more painful. But to be completely honest, she’d rather put it off, if given half the chance. 

“Are you going to say anything?” she asked.

“You’re the one that wants to talk,” he managed, thickly, “You wanted to stop, we stop. Never any other option, obviously.”

“I didn’t mean to stop like that,” she told him, wincing. She swore and took a deep, ragged breath, chest still heaving. “This isn’t some sort of mind game. I’d love nothing more than to let you fuck me until I can’t walk straight, darling, but there’s things you need to know first.”

Steve blinked. “Right.”

If there had been any blood flow left going towards his brain, she could tell it had quickly rerouted southward at her words, which certainly didn't help anybody with anything. 

“You’re not angry?”

“Angry, no? I just—I—I need a moment.”

She winced again. “This isn’t how I wanted it to go, either.”

Steve’s voice came out slightly choked, “Look, don’t get me wrong. It’s been _seventy years_ , Peg. Jesus Christ. But this has to be right for both of us. I don’t want doubt. When we—when it happens, I don’t want you disappearing the next day, or thinking it’s a mistake. You want to stop, fine. Okay. We stop. But… just give me a second to—without saying things like – just let me think about anything _other_ than you for five minutes, and I’ll be fine. Well, not fine. But not a walking hard-on, at least.”

She released a harsh breath, then admitted, “I didn’t stop because I think it’s a mistake. I stopped because you might.”

He stared at her like she had just lost her mind.

Peggy got up off the bed and retrieved her shirt, dragging it on. Her jeans were a crumbled mess on the floor, and she had to untangle them before pulling it on, one leg hopping at a time. “Meet me in the main room,” she told Steve, and left the bedroom, letting him take his five minutes without her to recite baseball stats or, _jesus_ , likely jerk off, not that she needed the distraction of thinking about that. She focused on her mission and went down the hallway, knocking forcefully on all the doors, waking everyone up. “Emergency Team Meeting,” she announced loudly, not particularly caring about waking any of them up from a drunken and well-earned sleep. “Outside, right now.”

It took some doing. The others emerged blurry-eyed and bed-rumpled from their rooms. Peggy marched back into the main living room, where last supper’s spaghetti and empty vodka bottles were still strewn across the table. Wanda looked as disgruntled as she’d looked when they’d uncuffed her from a bed in a Hydra facility, but after catching sight of the look on Peggy’s face, she marched mutely forward with a frown. She sat quietly on the corner edge of an armchair, while the others groused and grumbled at Peggy.

Steve finally emerged from their room, dressed again, and Peggy waited until he took a chair to her right. The rush of desire and excitement and frustration that had knocked him over was gone now, replaced by curiosity and an even more inflexible tension. She stood in the center of the room, restless, with a nervous energy in her veins. Peggy took a deep breath.

Natasha was the one that broke the hush. “You got something to say, boss?”

“Yes,” Peggy managed. “It’ll come as a shock.”

“You can’t possibly be pregnant again,” Bucky joked, tiredly. “You and Steve haven’t been reunited that long.”

“No,” Peggy snapped, while Steve scrubbed a hand across his face. “This is a delicate conversation I’m about to broach, so it’d be appreciated if the wise remarks from the peanut gallery could hold off.”

“I’m guessing this couldn’t wait until morning,” Sam said, and to anyone outside this room, it might have sounded like a gripe, but already his shoulders were straightening, picking up on the tension. 

“Since the 1960s,” Peggy announced, quickly, “I’ve been involved in a venture called Project Rebirth. It’s funded by Howard Stark and operated by a man named Dr. Abraham Erskine. It was originally funded for the purposes of curing diseases and pharmaceutical breakthroughs, the type heretofore undreamed of. It’s led to advances in stem cell research, targeted therapies for cancer treatments, and in no small way, to the production of the smallpox vaccine.”

They stared at her, but Steve was the one who leaned forward and broke the silence, looking like he already had an idea of where this was headed, and he didn’t like it. “Explain, Peg.”

“I’ve been volunteering,” Peggy said. “My body, my blood.”

There was a sudden, deafening silence. 

“And,” Peggy announced, voice gone soft. “I’m not the only one. There are other immortals.”

#


	7. Chapter 7

#

“Back in 1964,” Peggy continued, “I was outside of Germany tracking a soft target, and it was going nowhere. I was frustrated and taking it out at a bar,” she paused, taking a breath, “when this man walked in. Dr. Abraham Erskine.”

She had to take a moment to collect herself, because remembering that era brought up a lot of appalling memories that that she wasn’t proud of. Back then, she had taken on fights she had no business being a part of, but it had been easier to choose an enemy to fight than deal with her inner demons. She either had a drink in her hands, or a weapon. It was rarely anything else.

Peggy cleared her throat. “He was an elderly man, but he carried himself with grace, a type of dignity that was refreshing. Still, when he started talking about medical breakthroughs, I was largely humoring him. I paid my bill, left the bar politely – and he started following me out. You know how I hate being followed.”

Peggy didn't bother to elaborate; by this point, all of them understood she would have reacted with violence, even Wanda probably.

“But then he gets the drop on me,” Peggy announced with a sharp laugh, shaking her head. “He disarms me, twists my arm around my back, and has my own gun pressed against my temple. This lanky, bespectacled German doctor who looked old enough to be someone’s grandfather. And then he did something that truly shocked me.” She stopped, looking at Steve as she conveyed the news. “He pulled the trigger on himself, and ten seconds later spat the bullet out between his teeth.”

She didn't know how badly the reactions would be, and it was odd, to see those familiar lines of Steve’s features and not be able to interpret it. He just stood there, surprise blooming on his face, arms folded over his chest, quietly absorbing everything and refusing to say a word. Peggy felt her stomach tie up in knots.

Bucky broke the silence. “Why didn’t we dream of him?”

Peggy took a breath. “We weren’t part of his… unit, family, team. Whatever you want to call it. He had his own family of immortals at his side. I’ve met only two others, of his. Thor Odinson is over three thousand years old. He loves to tell stories of the old days among the Vikings. Valkyrie is maybe a few hundred years older than him. And Erskine is the eldest. I still don’t know how old. He may very well pre-date the Pyramids.”

There were others too. Another unit of immortals. Andromache "Andy" of Scythia, Booker, Joe, and Nicky. Peggy had only heard them referenced by Erskine once; they had refused to take part in Erskine’s project, and that was the last he’d heard of them – back in the sixties. Peggy had never met them.

“What did Erskine want?” Steve asked.

Peggy sat back, scrubbing a hand through her bed-rumpled hair. “Like I said before, medical breakthroughs. Erskine had long ago stopped being a warrior. He took up a new cause as a doctor. A way to make the world a better place. He wanted me to volunteer. I accepted.”

She didn’t mention her initial reaction and resistance, a scene of utter horror and shock. She’d taken her weapon back and threatened Erskine with all manners of painful deaths if he’d dared to follow her again. To this day, she still didn’t know how he found out about her. Despite the awkward start and despite her warning, the next time he contacted her, Peggy had been sober and more open-minded about the approach. Within the month, she was donating blood and sitting through the beginnings of a multiple decade long experiment. 

“You didn’t think we’d want to know,” Natasha asked her, “that there were others?”

Natasha looked at her with such frustration that Peggy had to look away. The explanation for why she never told them could have been remarkably straightforward for all that it involved. Peggy genuinely had not known where they all were in the sixties, all the way through the eighties. In the late nineties, however, when she joined Shield initially, she had gained resources and it wouldn’t have been impossible to track them down. Peggy could have done it. She’d refused. And then when rumors of the Old Winter Soldiers started popping up on Fury’s radar, whispers in the intelligence communities that slowly turned into bogie men stories, Peggy had purposefully turned a blind eye. 

“I wanted to tell you only when we’d succeeded,” Peggy admitted. “When Project Rebirth was successful.”

“Successful?” Steve repeated.

Peggy licked her lips, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot. “Erskine wanted to develop a super soldier serum, something that would grant eternal life. He came remarkably close only a few years ago, but Bruce – Bruce Banner, the test subject, another doctor on the project – received what clearly turned out to be a defective serum.”

“He's dead?” Sam asked.

“No, very much alive,” Peggy answered. “Indestructible, you could say. So, yes, immortality was gained perhaps – but there were unintended side-effects. Project Rebirth has had many messy outcomes.”

“How many times?” Steve asked.

Peggy glanced at him. “What?”

“How many times,” Steve demanded, shrewdly, “have you _died_ volunteering in this project?”

There was a lengthy pause. Peggy cleared her throat. “Twenty-seven,” she admitted, reluctantly.

Everyone flinched, but Peggy’s attention was riveted on Steve. He pushed off the wall, lips pressed firmly into a thin line, jawline cut from granite. He turned away immediately, but she caught the distress in his eyes, and it felt like too much for her to confront. 

Peggy could admit that Project Rebirth wasn’t a pretty endeavor. It had been filled with plenty of horrific dead ends and false starts. Peggy didn’t want to get into the details, but Bruce and his green alter-ego could attest to the worst of the side-effects. Even Jane Foster, Thor’s girlfriend and the only other remaining scientist on the project, had quit after voicing her concerns over the ethical and practical concerns. Despite this, Peggy had committed herself to the project long ago. Ending her immortality was never going to be a pretty end, especially not if it happened on the battlefield. 

At least this way, she had control. She had a say in when or how.

She watched his face for his response, but Steve turned away, walking away from her. Steve moved to the back, clearly needing a moment to collect his thoughts, and she could see the mounting tension in his shoulders as he absorbed the information he’d been handed, as he sorted through everything.

“Why would you do that?” Sam asked. “Why would you try to give the world the keys to immortality?”

“It is not as if others weren’t already trying,” Wanda spoke up, suddenly, her first words the entire conversation.

Of course. The girl was the byproduct of Hydra experimentation. Erskine was nothing like that, however. Peggy needed them to understand that. 

She looked to Wanda. “We’ve done a lot of good,” Peggy responded. Wanda clearly didn’t appreciate the “for the greater good” card, and the young girl’s expression turned dubious. Peggy didn’t blame her for the skepticism. She had rehearsed this answer a thousand times in her head, but suddenly, when forced to give the response to a sixteen-year-old girl who’d underwent the knife and numerous experimentations in god knows what ways, it felt hollow. “I know you won’t understand, but we were trying to do something good with our gifts beyond just… _killing._ There had to be purpose beyond murder and warfare.”

Everything Peggy had felt lately — all the hesitation, the confusion, the grief, and even the joy she felt at seeing everyone again — it suddenly felt overwhelming. It started bubbling towards the surface, and Peggy blinked back the veneer of tears as they came rushing up faster than she could push down. Angry, she looked away because she knew they’d all see it, and she hated showing weakness.

“The vaccines,” Peggy reiterated, “the breakthroughs in cancer and medicine. There were ways in which the applications—”

“Stop,” Steve cut in, tightly.

Peggy’s eyes drifted towards him, but he still had his back to her. 

He turned around slowly to face her. “Tell the truth, Peg. You wouldn’t have put yourself through all that to produce some damn botched super soldier serum. What was the real purpose of Erskine’s project?”

She took a deep breath before answering. “A cure for immortality.”

She saw the moment land, that shattering moment of understanding and the resulting sting of betrayal. Steve stared at her, and a part of him had guessed already – she could tell. He must have worked out enough from the start of the conversation, and she’d only confirmed his worst suspicions. Tears welled up in his eyes and made them astonishingly blue, and glassy.

Peggy felt the hot lick of guilt and self-recrimination make her eyes sting as everyone else worked out the obvious – that she meant to take the cure, that she meant to end her immortality and, by consequence, eventually, her life. She could see the ripple of that work through the group, from Bucky’s swear under his breath, to Sam’s dawning comprehension on his face; even Natasha, legendary for her grace under pressure, stoic and never one to flinch, registered the revelation with shock. 

“So, let me get this straight,” Bucky said, when no one else said anything. “You’ve been gone for decades because you’ve been working with other immortals to find a—a way to kill yourself? Permanently.”

Peggy flinched, but didn’t deny the words.

"Well," Bucky said, incredulous. "It's good to see you’re still as stubborn as ever. Once you set your mind to something, you keep pushing. I’m surprised it only took you seventy years." 

“Is there a cure?” Sam asked softly, from the back.

Everyone turned to stare at him in surprise, even Peggy.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Sam said, swallowing hard. “I love you guys, and I’m not looking to book any tickets anytime soon. But it’s different, when you’re alone. Forever can be a very cold prospect when you’re alone.”

“You’re not alone,” Bucky exhaled hard, recoiling.

“Bucky, man,” Sam sighed heavily. “You have Natasha. Even Steve, even despite these last few decades alone – he has Peggy. It’s different when you’ve spent nearly two hundred years as the fifth wheel. I’ve got Riley right now, but how long will that last? How long before he notices I don’t age? That I don’t get sick? Having the option to… grow old with someone, it’s not the worst thing in the world.”

Peggy could have wept with relief at having someone see her side of this, but her biggest problem was still staring her in the face – Steve. He hadn’t said a word. And he looked… _brittle,_ like the strength that normally sustained him and made him into a pillar of power was suddenly drained. He looked tired, and Peggy _ached_ for him, for the pain she knew she’d inflicted upon him by this revelation. She didn’t know how to mitigate that; it was why she hadn’t wanted to sleep with him first without having this secret revealed. 

He deserved better. 

Steve deserved more than she could give, perhaps.

“I haven’t made any final decisions,” Peggy said, softly. “When the cure is ready – which could be years from now, it could be tomorrow, I don’t know. Erskine said he’s close, but he’s been close for a long time. I haven’t made a decision to take it either way. But I want the option. I think all of us, at one point or another, would want the option.”

“I want to meet Erskine,” Natasha announced. It wasn’t surprising that she was the first to reach the practical conclusions of the conversation. “I want to meet the other immortals.”

Peggy opened and closed her mouth. “I’m not sure how quickly I can arrange that. None of them know about you guys. I kept your identities and existence a secret.”

“You don’t trust this Erskine guy?” Bucky asked, eyes narrowed.

“No, I trust him, but my first priority will always be—” Peggy trailed off, shaking her head. “If you want to meet, you need to know what you’re getting into.”

Natasha raised a carefully sculpted eyebrow. “What would we be getting into?” 

“Exposure,” Peggy answered. “I made that decision long ago. You all need to make yours.”

For a long beat, no one said anything. Then Steve exhaled hard and nodded. “That’s enough for now. We’ll regroup in the morning. Everyone, get some rest. We have a lot to think about.”

It was a perfectly logical response – and a perfectly Steve-like response, but Peggy felt the reprimand underneath his somber words. Time would do little to dull the sting of betrayal, Peggy knew. The others dispersed, but Peggy stood rooted in her spot because Steve hadn’t moved. When they were left alone, Steve folded his arms across his chest and stared at her, jaw clenched.

“Why?” he finally asked.

The answer had changed many times over the years, but it hadn’t fundamentally altered too much either, not from the day she’d walked away from him, the day she’d buried their little girl’s body. Sometimes it felt like she'd been making excuses, like she was trying to convince herself of a path that she’d been on for so many years she could see no way out. 

But the truth was far simpler than that.

“Because there has to be an end,” she answered, without charm or eloquence.

He closed his eyes, nodded, and quietly excused himself. “I need some air.”

When he left to ride up the elevator, Peggy found herself frozen. She didn’t want the conversation to end on that note. She didn’t know what she wanted, or could have hoped for after the revelations, but parting from Steve on such an abysmal punctuation point left Peggy reeling. By the time she had made the decision to follow him, he was already topside, walking through the woods out back in the dead of night. She hadn’t thought to grab a jacket or anything in her haste to follow him, and the chill of the night air made goosebumps break out across her skin. 

“Steve, wait.”

He kept walking further into the woods. “I need some space, Peg.”

She rushed to catch up with him. “Just let me explain.”

“I understand enough.”

She flinched. “I never meant to hurt you, Steve.”

That finally brought him to a halt. He pivoted to face her, and Peggy took one look at him, hating how angry he looked, how his thick hair was an absolute mess, muddled because her hands had run recklessly through it earlier. It was hanging in front of his eyes just the smallest amount, and her instinct was to brush it back. 

“I love you,” she told him, going for broke. She needed him to understand, to know the decision to find the cure wasn’t about _leaving_ him. He was the first and foremost reason that she had in _not_ taking the cure. “That never changed.”

“Everything has changed,” Steve argued, sounding defeated. “Are you going to take it?”

“I meant what I said. I haven’t made a decision, but I do want the choice.”

He shook his head. And then, so fast and so unexpected Peggy took a stumbled step back, he was kissing her, crowding her as his mouth pressed against hers. Instinct took over before he could mistake her surprise as hesitation, because she wanted this too, wanted it just as much as she’d wanted it earlier in the night when he’d had his fingers underneath the waistband of her panties; she swallowed her breath and matched his pace, but there was something tainting the kiss, a bleakness and fury that normally wasn’t present in any of Steve’s kisses. Peggy refused to think about that, desperate to just _feel_ him, arching up on her tiptoes for a better angle when he caught both her wrists in his hands and pinned them to the tree trunk behind her. 

She let his lips slide over hers, heat and desire screaming back to life, but then he pulled away, and Peggy felt her stomach bottom out. 

“When you make your choice,” he told her, heavily, “I’ll be here. But I can’t have you and then lose you again. I can’t do this if you’re just going to walk away again.”

He let go of her wrists and marched away before she could make a word of protest.

#


	8. Chapter 8

#

The mosquitos were out in full force after the rain, and Natasha squatted at her arm as she made the trudge towards the SUV. The car was far from its best shape, given one side of it was riddled with bullet holes, and Natasha knew they needed to acquire another vehicle before the day was over. There were things that needed to be done, but her thoughts were preoccupied as she loaded up the car and waited for Bucky to join her. He had been unusually quiet all morning long. The entire team had been somber, in fact, which couldn’t have been a surprise to anyone after Peggy’s revelations two nights back. Bucky hadn’t managed a wink of sleep the prior night, alternating between venting to Natasha incessantly and then curling up beside her in a possessive embrace, arms wrapped so tightly Natasha had been sweltering all night long. She hadn’t complained, though. She knew he’d needed the contact. 

Natasha was still working through her feelings about everything, but all of them had decided – even Bucky, even with his staunch reservations – that they needed to meet Erskine and his team of immortals. It was a compulsion of curiosity, if not an outright necessity of survival. Out there, there was a potential cure for immortality, which Natasha knew just as much as anyone else did, could be weaponized against them. 

The morning had been stilted without conversation. Peggy had already begun reaching out to Howard, as they’d all agreed that the introductions needed to transpire fast. While that happened, Sam had taken Wanda under his wings and brought her into the kitchen, where he was teaching her how to make his infamous _Hachis Parmentier_ , a French delicacy from his old days. Meanwhile, Natasha hadn’t heard one peep out of Steve all morning, and she figured she’d give him time and space. No one commented on the fact that he’d left Peggy to have their bedroom all to herself, instead sleeping on the living room couch, a sofa so small his feet had to have stuck out all night long. Natasha wasn’t going to touch whatever was going on between Steve and Peggy with a ten-foot pole. She had enough concerns.

“Are you two headed into the city?” Peggy asked, coming up behind them unexpectedly.

Barnes flashed Natasha a quick look, as if allowing her to make the call. “Had a few errands,” Natasha answered, eventually. “Yeah.”

“As do I,” Peggy replied. “You mind dropping me off midtown?”

“Why?” Bucky asked. 

Peggy sensed the inherent wariness, of course, not that she showed it in any way. “I’m having difficulty getting in touch with Howard Stark. I figured I would just drop in uninvited.”

Natasha raised an eyebrow. “Stark Tower?”

“Stark Tower is Tony Stark’s residence,” Peggy answered. “Howard has his own dwelling in New York. It’s hardly modest, but it isn’t the monstrosity of Stark Tower. I never thought I’d live to see the day where one could consider Howard Stark’s taste as demure by comparison, but clearly if you live long enough, you see everything.” 

“And you think you can just walk in?” Bucky asked. “He’s got security, and you’re a wanted criminal.”

Peggy raised an eyebrow back. “I’ve been dealing with Howard Stark’s security for decades. I know my way in.”

The matter was dropped as the group piled into the SUV. Normally Natasha drove as she always liked being in the driver’s seat, but Bucky was so restless that she knew he needed something to keep him preoccupied. She tossed him the keys and quietly slid a pair of aviators over her eyes. Of course, he drove more impatiently than normal, speeding unnecessarily and blaring the horn once or twice at an offending party that cut him off. It was a mark of how uncomfortable everyone was in the car that no one remarked or said a word. Peggy was being uncharacteristically non-hypercritical.

For her part, Natasha said nothing to Bucky because she knew he needed to work through his issues on his own. As much as he had been wounded by Peggy’s secrets, it was fear that was driving his agitation. Bucky was absolutely terrified of losing any of them. It had taken him a long time to gain this family, and Natasha knew better than anyone how fiercely he defended them. They were as vital as breath and water to him. After the Second World War, there had been a Peggy-shaped hole in their family, and now that she was back, rather than filling it up again she’d brought along a metaphorical sledgehammer. Bucky could handle a lot of things, but this type of change shook his entire foundation. He was a man of simple desires at the end of the day. 

It was different, for Natasha. She had never grown up with family. She didn’t know who her parents were; she’d only known the orphanage and the nuns that had taken her in. But a Russian orphanage in 1600s was ripe with terrors, and when she’d escaped, Natasha had learned quickly that the best way to avoid becoming a victim was to become a predator instead. Natasha had grown into a cutthroat for hire. She used to be a lot of things when she had been mortal. Femme fatale. Courtesan. Assassin. Then one cold Russian winter, she’d been fighting a cadre of imperial troops and had been left slain in the snow.

Peggy had been the one to find her, first. 

This family she had acquired – it was the only one she had ever known. It was bothering her, too, the idea of their team fracturing, not only the thought of losing Peggy, but possibly Sam, too, who seemed interested in the cure beyond just idle speculation. She was hiding it better that Bucky’s tetchiness and certainly Steve’s self-imposed isolation. Not perfectly, however. Sam had approached her earlier in the morning, and had, in his own way, offered her a moment to talk if she’d needed. Sam was always doing that – trying to get her to talk. But she'd spoken the truth when she'd admitted that she wasn't sure how she'd felt about the cure, and that she didn’t feel the need to talk about it yet.

Someone needed to say something to Peggy, though. This type of avoidance and aversion would only widen the gaps. Natasha tended to favor secrets herself, and she understood, from a certain point of view, why Peggy had done the things she’d done. Natasha was only roughly three hundred and seventy years old. She imagined life would look different on the other side of two thousand. 

Eventually, they pulled up to the car dealership outside the city, and Bucky got out. “I’ll call when it’s done,” he told Natasha. “Say hello to Barton for me.” He glanced only briefly to offer a nod to Peggy in the backseat, and then left.

“You want to come up front?” Natasha asked Peggy, after Bucky was out of sight.

“Yes, I suppose so.”

Peggy rearranged herself in the front passenger seat while Natasha drove. Instead of heading towards midtown, though, Natasha deviated course and quickly parked in front of a small bistro with a gravel parking lot. Peggy looked questioning, and Natasha gestured for her to follow inside.

“What are we doing here?” Peggy asked. “Meeting a contact of yours?”

“A little later, perhaps. Right now, I figure we could try that normal civilized thing called lunch.”

The waitress was in a bit of a hurry when she seated Natasha and Peggy in sticky pleather booths and handed them plastic menus. There was a large flatscreen TV hanging directly overhead, displaying the local news and sports scores in a loud blare. A pair of water-filled glasses were presented quickly and without comment, and the waitress barely had time to catch their coffee orders. It wasn’t a great establishment. The scent of smoke hung vaguely in the air, and Natasha took a medicinal sip of water without really tasting it. The best thing on the menu was probably the beer, but Natasha hadn’t chosen the place because of the reviews. 

Peggy had guessed as much, as well. Eventually, without looking up from the menu, she asked, “Why are we here?”

“Because we need to talk, girl to girl.”

Peggy smiled. “Right.” She sat back against the booth, heavily. “Well?”

“You know the last few years we managed just fine without you,” Natasha said, bluntly, cutting right to it. “Mostly we figured out what worked for us, and what didn’t. We’ve spent a lifetime without you now, and we managed it without losing our shit.”

“I’m glad,” Peggy answered. “Truly.”

“But one of us is different,” Natasha continued, without naming names because she didn’t have to. Steve spent the last three years in prison, after all. It wasn't because he'd adjusted well. Natasha picked up her menu and stared at the large print without reading a word. “One of us lost our way. What we’re supposed to die for, to fight for, it became… unendurable. It became a job, this fight. It used to be a purpose for him.”

Peggy didn’t respond. Instead, she cupped her hands around the glass of water and looked away.

"I know you, Peg, and you're bleeding out whether you admit it or not. So let’s cut the bullshit. Give me a good reason to be on your side and I’ll gladly be there."

Natasha watched, knowing that either Peggy would open up or she wouldn’t. It was different with the men. Bucky, Steve, and Sam all wore their emotions on their sleeves, always so utterly obvious about every thought or sentiment that ran across them that it hardly took a child to figure it out. With Peggy, though, things were always closer to the chest. Natasha was the same. She even suspected Wanda had more than her share of secrets and confidences.

But this latest secret of Peggy’s was something Natasha could only observe, not share. Everything in Peggy’s past, everything she’d done, there was a weight to that. Peggy would either choose to share it, or she wouldn’t.

“Did I ever tell you about Dottie?” Peggy spoke up, finally.

“Not much,” Natasha conceded. “She was well before Steve’s time, another immortal. Your lover. She disappeared one day and you never saw her again.”

“It wasn’t that tidy,” Peggy struggled to say, fingers fidgeting nervously with her glass. “She didn’t leave voluntarily. I forced her to go.”

The moment was interrupted by the waitress, who’d returned with their coffee and ready to take orders, too. Natasha waited silently as Peggy’s wall went up again as she provided her order. The respite from the discussion clearly allowed Peggy to recover and lick her cuts from an ancient wound. Dottie was so far in the past, Natasha never really thought about how much her ghost still affected Peggy. Clearly, though, it still had some pull.

After the waitress left, Peggy swirled in milk into her coffee with curlicues. “Dottie was… smart. God, she was so brilliant she could put the best minds today to shame. She had a fierceness that was enigmatic and magnetic. She was a great warrior, too, although I’m sure that doesn’t surprise you. The thing was…” Peggy sighed. “She was also what I could politely call megalomaniacal.”

Natasha probably looked as surprised as she felt. Peggy had never mentioned any of this before, not even, Natasha suspected, to Steve. 

“In the end of our relationship,” Peggy said, “people were calling us sorceresses. Calling us gods. Dottie was starting to buy a little too much into her own fame. But it was more than just arrogance. Dottie became… deranged. The hubris was astonishing.”

Natasha set her coffee down. “You never mentioned any of this.”

Peggy shrugged. “Dottie is long dead. It didn’t seem to matter.”

“Then why are you telling me now?”

“Because I don’t ever want to become her,” Peggy answered shrewdly. “I loved her, but then she became something… something dangerous and deadly. She had lived so long that she became her own worst enemy. An enemy that I couldn’t kill. Things need to end, Natasha. We aren’t meant to go on indefinitely. We have so much blood on our hands. Too much.” 

“You can’t wash that away,” Natasha offered. “What we’ve done, we’ve done. You can’t wipe out that much red.”

Peggy held her stare. “Then all we can do sometimes is start over, or end things.”

That was all that needed to be said, Natasha supposed. The atmosphere changed subtly from inquisitive to something a little more understanding. The acceptance was in a minor key, but significant. Natasha stopped asking questions, and they resumed their lunch together in silence, before moving on eventually, picking up threads of conversation more suitable to a Monday afternoon bistro conversation. 

“Who is Barton?” Peggy eventually asked, while they ate.

“My contact within Shield.” 

Peggy’s eyes widened as she stopped chewing. “Clint Barton?”

“I see his reputation precedes him.”

“More than that,” Peggy hissed. “I know him, and he knows me. He was one of my subordinates at Shield. We’re not meeting him here, are we? I can’t be here if you’re going to—”

“Relax,” Natasha cut in. “You can trust Clint.”

“Need I remind you that I’m wanted by Shield? Fury and Coulson likely have a reward on my head.”

“And I am telling you that you don’t have to worry about Clint. I trust him.”

Peggy paused, studying her with scrutinizing gaze. Her eyes narrowed as she started figuring things out. “How much does he know?”

Natasha didn’t say a word. She only smiled enigmatically. Peggy wasn’t the only one who liked her secrets, after all. Peggy’s jaw clenched, but she remained in the booth, which was a clear display of trust. Still, Peggy continued to look uneasy, and perhaps not unreasonably. Peggy knew Clint as Hawkeye, a skilled marksman, a high-ranking special agent of Shield, known for his use of the bow and arrow as his primary weapon. He just so happened to be on the taskforce assigned to bring in Peggy Carter. On other hand, he was also deeply familiar with Peggy's true tumultuous history as Natasha had filled in the various blanks. 

At a quarter passed two, Natasha spotted Clint walk in through the entrance. He cast a glance around the room, seemingly at ease, but Natasha knew he was checking for line of sight and various exits. He finally landed on the table, as if discovering Natasha and Peggy for the first time, as if they hadn’t been the first thing his eyes had taken in. He strolled up to the booth like they were all old friends.

“Ladies,” he greeted, removing his sunglasses. “You know they got a two-for-one happy hour deal going on, right? Why don’t I see mimosas on the table?”

Natasha rose to hug him, another display that took Peggy by surprise. 

It was a long story, but Natasha had first run into Clint more than fifteen years back, when she’d been a tight bind and trapped by a particularly nasty contingent of Taliban soldiers who’d run to ground near a small school filled with Afghani children. Clint had dived in with other Americans, and his team had generally made a mess of things as Americans usually did, but he’d been the last to survive. He’d saved Natasha too, but the real display of trust had been when he’d seen the wounds on Natasha’s abdomen heal without a trace. He could have turned her in to the government. He could have reported her to his superiors. He could have done a number of things. Instead, he made another call.

And Natasha, normally one that never trusted, normally one that thought faith was for fools, went against every rule she’d ever set out for herself. She told this idiot mortal the truth. She trusted him. Fifteen years later, and she had yet to regret the decision. Outside of the Old Winter Soldiers, there was no one Natasha trusted more than Clint Barton.

He sat down next to Natasha. “So,” he said to Peggy, conversationally, “Coulson really doesn’t like you anymore.”

“I gathered.”

“Ward and Thompson were Hydra?” Clint asked.

Peggy offered a tight nod.

Clint shook his head, then shrugged causally enough. The one thing that always threw most people for a loop was Clint’s easygoing attitude to virtually anything. Whenever Natasha opened her mouth to ask for a favor or deliver impossible news, Clint treated everything like it was all to be expected. Laura used to tell her it was all part of his charm.

“You’ve got a lot of heat on you,” Clint offered. “I wouldn’t go poking your heads out anytime soon. Shield has eyes everywhere.”

“What about a raiding party?” Natasha asked. “Bucky, Sam, and I got caught up the other day by a firing squad. A team of six. Special ops.”

Clint frowned, stealing a fry off Natasha’s plate and eating it. “Nothing I heard of. Doesn’t sound like Shield.”

“If I gave you the serial numbers on the guns they used, could you run a trace?”

Clint nodded, and Natasha slid an envelope across the sticky table, face down. She’d already written out the sequences of serial numbers, alongside printed photos of the deceased soldiers that Natasha had captured with her phone. They were mostly non-descript white males in their mid-to-late thirties, but Clint had done more with less. 

Peggy had been watching Clint with suspicion the entire time, but more and more, the tension in her shoulders was dropping. Eventually, she spoke up. “You know about us, don’t you? You know who – _what_ – I am.”

Clint nodded. “I’ve known that for at least – when was it, Tasha? It was a decade ago that you told me about her?”

“A decade?” Peggy repeated, incredulous.

“He’s the one that informed us you were with Shield,” Natasha offered, sipping her coffee. “Steve told him to keep an eye out for you.”

Peggy appeared not to know what to say to that. If Peggy only knew the full truth. Steve had been watching out for her for nearly a decade, guarding from a distance. Natasha imagined the truth would have been very illuminating for Peggy in a number of ways.

“How long are you guys going to be here?” Clint asked.

“A while yet,” Natasha answered. “But we’re laying low.”

“Is the bullet-ridden SUV out back your idea of laying low?" Clint asked.

Natasha shrugged. "Okay. We're in the _process_ of laying low."

Clint snorted. "Lay somewhere else,” he offered. “I’ve already misdirected resources, but I’m not working with idiots here. Coulson will realize it if I mess with intel coming in. You should think about leaving town.”

“We will,” Peggy offered, eyes lifting to him. “And Agent Barton?”

“Yes, ma’am?”

“It appears I may owe you my thanks. You kept my secret.”

“No thanks necessary, ma’am. Any friend of Natasha is a friend of mine.”

“Well then, in that case we can move beyond the _ma’am_ nonsense.”

Clint wore a shit-eating grin. “Sure thing, boss.”

Peggy groaned. _Boss_ was a nickname that Natasha had stuck her with a very long time ago, and apparently Clint must have remembered this fact from one of the few times Natasha had mentioned it. Peggy’s eyes slid over to Natasha with a very tired and put-upon look, and Natasha only offered a casual shrug, hiding a smile.

But then Peggy’s eyes snapped up, towards the TV screen as she caught the echoes of a special news broadcast announcement. _“Breaking news,”_ the anchorman announced. _“US arms mogul Howard Stark, who built a multinational industrial empire and the largest tech conglomerate in the world, has died at age 102.”_

“Howard,” Peggy breathed out in horror, color draining from her face.

“ _The billionaire tycoon died in his sleep last night due to natural causes, and was remembered by Stark Industries, which released this official statement only moments ago. ‘For his unparalleled passion, his endless intellectual curiosity, and his complete dedication to his company_ , _Howard Stark will be missed. There will never be anyone else like him_.’” 

_“What a sad day,”_ the bottle-blonde anchorwoman agreed. “ _Of course, we have yet to hear from his heir, Tony Stark, who stands to inherent the multibillion-dollar corporation. As most can remember from their decades long feud, the Starks are as well known for their family squabbles as they are for their aggressive corporate acquisitions. Here’s hoping they managed to bury the hatchet before the senior Stark passed away...”_

Natasha turned to study Peggy. “You all right?”

But Peggy stood frozen, pale as a ghost, and refused to answer.

#


	9. Chapter 9

#

“ _... Howard Stark’s health had been the focus of much speculation in his later years,”_ the anchorman said, as Steve, Wanda, and Sam gathered around the TV, _“so as news of his death travels through the world, eyes are focused on the stock market and what upheaval this can bring. The question remains if Tony Stark can live up to his father’s legacy.”_

Steve frowned. The man wasn’t even cold in the ground, and they were already circling his body like vultures. He had no love for Stark Industries, or for either father or son, but there was something inherently cruel about reducing a man’s life to stocks and shares. From what Peggy had spoken of him, Howard Stark had been a good and true friend. Whatever his faults in life were, and Steve suspected the senior Stark had plenty of vices, the fact that he had been a good friend to Peggy made his death a misfortune. 

Sam crossed the room towards him, holding up a phone. “It’s Nat, for you.”

Steve frowned and took the phone. “Yeah?”

“We got a problem,” Natasha said.

“Stark? Yeah, we just saw the news, too.”

“No, not that,” Natasha answered. “It’s Peggy. She’s gone AWOL.”

Steve swore. “What?”

“Look, I was with her and Barton in a dive outside the city. We saw the breaking news about Stark, and I turned my back for two seconds – and she’s gone. I don’t know where. I don’t know for what. But I do know the look on her face when the news aired, and wherever she is, whatever she’s doing, I can tell you it isn’t going to be good.”

Jesus. They couldn’t seem to catch a break. 

“Where’s Bucky?” he asked.

“Wrapping up at the car dealership.”

“Get him and get back here.”

“What about Peggy?” Natasha asked.

His instinct was to go searching for her, but after everything recently, he knew now more than ever that he needed to fight that urge. For all her long years, Peggy had lately been handling her grief worse than any of them, like it’d taken a toll and was now just crumbling the foundation. It was obvious Howard Stark’s death had struck a deep nerve. Steve could expound energy trying to chase after her, but Peggy would do what she wanted to do, and there would be little stopping her. She needed to get this out of her system, whatever she was doing. And he needed to let her do it.

“She’ll be fine,” Steve answered, with more confidence than he felt. “She’ll find her way back here when she’s ready.”

There was a long pause. “You sure?”

Not even remotely. “Yeah. Just come back. We need to figure out our next move.”

Even as Natasha confirmed the orders, he knew the game plan was stalled until they had Peggy to direct them towards Erskine and his team of immortals. Both Sam and Wanda were watching him as he hung up, matching frowns on their faces. 

“She’s hurting, man,” Sam said, almost in a reprimanding tone. “You sure you want to leave her out there in the wind by herself?”

“That isn’t what this is,” Steve answered, stung that Sam could even think that. For all his hang ups with Peggy, Steve would never abandon her. His problem was likely the exact extreme opposite. “She needs space to process this. Trust me. I know Peggy.”

That seemed to satisfy Sam, but Wanda was still apprehensive. She stood stiffly, arms folded over herself as if cold and shivering. She had been quiet since the news broadcast. She had been guarded all morning, in fact.

“What is it?” Steve asked.

Wanda shook her head. “This is… not good.”

“What is? Stark’s death?”

“I feel as if we are on the precipice of something,” Wanda answered, concerned. “The death of such a warmonger doesn’t sadden me, but his son – Tony Stark. Whatever marvels of death the father constructed are nothing in comparison to what the son could invent.”

Steve didn’t comment. What he knew of Tony Stark came from the papers and tabloids. The man loved his nightlife almost as much as he loved the sound of his own voice, but there had to be something of the father in the son, and if Peggy had trusted Howard Stark, then Steve wasn’t willing to write off Tony Stark just yet based solely on hearsay and gossip.

Although, he had a feeling Wanda’s impressions weren’t based on gossip magazines either. 

“I’m going for a run,” Steve announced, because he needed to do something.

He pulled on his workout clothes and headed out. He started with the intention of a light run, but the heavy footfalls were somehow hypnotic, and Steve escaped into a fast-paced run as the minutes turned into miles turned into hours. Before long, Steve had put out a burst of speed that didn’t let up, working himself into a sweat, running wide laps through the forest. The midday sun scorched overheard. Despite the physical exertion, Steve still felt wound tight, muscles screaming for relief. But the more he thought about the situation with Peggy, the less he felt certain of anything.

Even if he’d clocked Peggy’s desire for the cure as soon as she started talking about Erskine and his medical breakthroughs, Steve still had difficulty wrapping his head around it. He thought about it first thing in the morning when he got up. He thought about it when he went to bed. He thought about it when he ate food or brushed his teeth. He thought about it when he watched her out of the corner of his eye, her mouth carefully set with determination, her hands folded at her waist. The idea of Peggy taking the cure – each time, without fail, his entire mind rebelled against the thought. He knew it was her choice. He even understood some of her reasoning. None of that changed the fact that his life was irrevocably tied with hers, and if she chose to end her life, Steve knew his own would never be the same. 

Fate had brought them together, out of everyone and everything in the world, through long brutal years. That had to mean something.

By the time he’d run back to the bunker, Natasha and Bucky were there. 

“What do you think she’s doing right now?” Bucky asked him, while Steve took a gulp from a bottle of water.

Steve shook his head miserably. “Trying to find a target to take her anger out on?” he guessed. “Stark’s death is going to throw her.”

Bucky looked at Steve with a raised eyebrow. “You guys haven’t talked, have you?”

“I don’t know if this is one of those things that I can talk her out of,” Steve replied.

There was a lengthy pause, and then Natasha surprised him by saying, “Maybe you’re not supposed to talk her out of it.” She was looking away at the horizon, refusing to meet Steve’s stunned gaze. But the silence stretched on, and she must have felt his incredulous stare build and hold. She looked back, and sighed. “I'm just... I'm reading the terrain. You’ve got two options in front of you, Steve. Fight this or accept it. I’m not saying I agree with her about everything, but she has her reasons for considering the cure and they’re not entirely unreasonable.”

“What?” Bucky said, outraged. “She’s talking about killing herself.”

“She’s talking about ending her immortality,” Natasha replied. “She’ll have one last life to live out. One last death. Like everyone else on this planet.”

Steve didn’t know what to say to that. First, Sam. Now, Natasha. Somehow Peggy was bringing people to her side, and Steve didn’t know what to do with that. Neither did Bucky, clearly, and Natasha sighed, as if sensing that she had just weighed in on a larger conversation. 

Steve braced himself with a breath. “What happens with Peggy comes down to one thing, and one thing only – what Peggy wants. No one, not even me, can convince her to do anything she doesn’t want to do.”

And that was the truth of it, because no one even bothered to follow up the comment. They got up and entered the bunker. The day passed, and it wasn’t until very late into the night, almost what one could consider early into the next morning, that Peggy showed up. He wasn’t sure how she’d arrived at the bunker – she couldn’t have walked all the way from the restaurant she’d abandoned Nat at. But the details of her transportation were the least of his concerns. Because he was still sleeping on the living room couch, he heard the elevator long before it stopped at their floor. He rose to greet her as she stepped off the lift, and she just looked at him, very tiredly, as if bracing herself for a fight. 

He didn’t want to feed into that, but he had to ask. “Where have you been?” 

“Trying to get answers,” Peggy said. “I wanted to make sure Howard’s death was as straightforward as the news claimed.”

“You think he was assassinated? At 102 years old?”

“I think we shouldn’t rule things out without looking into them.” 

Steve sighed heavily, knowing better than to argue with her. “And what did you find?”

“Not much,” Peggy admitted wearily. “My pull for resources isn’t what it used to be now that I’m no longer with Shield. I tried to get a copy of the medical reports, but an autopsy isn’t likely to be done unless his son suspects foul play, which I doubt he does. As you said, Howard was over a century old.”

Steve stood his ground, waiting for Peggy to continue, but she didn’t. Maybe she was exhausted from the day. Maybe she had nothing of any real substance to offer. Her standard composure looked slightly off center, as if she wasn’t keeping that stiff upper lip as rigid as she normally did. There wasn’t a hair out of place, of course, but Steve could see the weight of the day – the last few days, probably – taking its tax against her. She started to move, and Steve instinctively reached out at the last second, just for her wrist, holding her gently but firmly in place. Peggy froze, staring at him, first with a weariness that slowly morphed into despondency the longer he held her stare. He knew how much she was hurting. He hadn’t known Howard, but he knew she didn’t afford herself many close connections – and Howard had somehow earned and kept a spot for nearly a century. Steve stared long enough that the pieces of her armor started to loosen around her.

He pulled her into a hug, and she just _collapsed_ against him gratefully. A squeeze of her shoulders had her breaking out into a soft rumble against his chest, and she wrapped her arms around him tightly and held on as if she couldn’t hold herself up anymore. Steve _ached_ for her, because he could handle a lot of things, but the sight of Peggy crying always tore at him like a wolf clawing at his chest. It carried him back to the last time he’d held Peggy while she’d sobbed, all those years ago in their bombed-out London apartment. The thought made Steve tug her more tightly against his chest, arms enfolding around her protectively, as if he could shelter her from this. But grief was such a malicious poison that somehow never lost its potency for all the times they’d suffered from it.

“I never even said goodbye,” she told him. 

“If he knew you at all,” Steve offered, “he knew how you felt about him.”

Peggy made a noise that could have been a protest or a grudging agreement, but mostly came out a weak vibration against his chest. She must have somewhat accepted Steve’s words, though, because she pulled back from his embrace and wiped at her eyes. Steve felt the loss of contact distinctly, but it was for the best. One part of him appreciated that he needed to keep his distance, for his own sanity if nothing else; the other part was too busy cataloguing the feeling of her body against his, the heat emanating from her and then seeping away with distance. The reckless sentiment took too long to pass, even as Steve looked down at her.

If she’d noticed his momentary lapse, she didn’t comment on it.

He stepped back, leaning against the wall, away from her. “Why don’t you go shower up? I’ll make you some tea.”

She nodded, visibly exhausted. She left, but by the time the tea kettle was whistling, he hadn’t heard the shower turn on. He walked over to find Peggy already passed out, still fully clothed, on the small chair in their bedroom. The sight sent a different kind of warmth through Steve, a kind of belonging settling within him. After a moment, he quietly bent a knee to remove her shoes and took off her socks. It was easy to lift and place her under the covers of the bed because she barely weighed a thing for him; besides Peggy always slept like the dead. She could – and _had_ – slept through multiple earthquakes. He made sure to find a comfortable position for her on the small mattress and then took a step away.

For a moment, it was unbearably tempting to join her in sleep. Curling up with her in his arms was an infinitely better sleeping arrangement than stretching out on the too-small couch in the living room again. He knew she wouldn’t have minded. For all her earlier hang-ups, he was the one putting the brakes on everything now. He knew that way lay heartache and complications. He knew he couldn’t, because he had good reason not to. 

That didn’t mean the urge wasn’t there.

He pulled away and turned off the lights, walking away. He scrubbed a hand roughly through his hair as he made his way back to the living room. Bucky was there, waiting. He must have heard Peggy’s arrival.

“You still haven’t talked to her, have you?” Bucky said. 

Steve shook his head. “We’ve talked. Right now she’s not in the right frame of—”

“Do you even know what you’re doing with her?” Bucky stopped him. 

Steve sighed, dropping down heavily onto the couch. “I’ve pretty much never known what I’m doing with her. I’ve just been along for the ride.”

Bucky pinched the bridge of his nose, like he had a headache coming on. “Steve, I’ve said this plenty of times over the years, but know that I have never meant this more. You’re an _idiot._ You’ve got to talk to her.”

“And say what? _Hey, Peg, don’t end your immortality, pretty please with cherries on top_?”

“Have you told her how you felt about the idea?”

“She knows.”

“How does she—”

“She _knows_ ,” he snapped.

Bucky shut his mouth, staring at him.

Steve sighed. “She knows what I’m thinking the same way Natasha knows you. Why do you think Peg stayed away all these years? Because she knew what my reaction would be, and she didn’t want to confront that.”

Peggy could be brave in so many ways, except when confronting unwelcomed _feelings_.

“So, that’s it then?” Bucky said, incredulous. “You’re just going to roll over and play dead.”

“I’m going to let her make her own decisions,” Steve countered, getting annoyed. “And you’re going to have to learn to live with that, too. Not just her decision, but Sam’s or Natasha’s or whoever else decides to take the cure. This is a decision that everyone needs to make for themselves. We can’t force anyone to stay just because we’d miss them.”

Bucky looked, as Steve would have suspected if he'd stopped to think about it, like he was almost shaking with the effort not to lash out. Bucky didn't try to deny his fear or anger, instead he looked very much like the ghost of the man Steve had first discovered in Germany, a weary soldier who spent his days drinking and his nights whoring his way through brothels because he’d given up on any semblance of a real life. Bucky knew what it was like to be alone in life.

“Get some sleep,” Steve told him. “It’s late.”

Bucky didn’t argue. He left, disappearing into the room he shared with Natasha. Steve knew he hadn’t heard the last of this from Bucky, but for the moment, he couldn’t bring himself to care. His attention was too hyper-focused on Peggy. 

He tried to get some sleep, but it was hard, and then made impossible when only a few hours later the alarms started blaring; someone had tripped the perimeter alarm. Steve was the first to get up and view the surveillance monitor by the elevator, the one that gave a wide-angle view of the outside. He couldn’t see anyone in the front, but there were plenty of places to hide in the forest.

“Anything?” Sam asked as he approached. Wanda was behind him, sleep rumpled but alert.

Steve shook his head. “Stay here,” he ordered Sam. “Hold down the fort.”

The command to keep Wanda safe and out of sight went unsaid but was received loud and clear by Sam’s answering nod. By now everyone knew the escape routes and unmarked exits; the main obvious one was the elevator, but there was a second exit, too, a pair of stairs that led topside, hidden behind a bookshelf and a solid metal door in the back. Peggy met him at the back, helping him move the heavy bookstand that concealed the exit, just as Natasha and Bucky raided the weapons cache and started handing out rifles.

They worked their way outside in pairs, Peggy and Steve leading the path into the forest bathed in dawning sunlight. It was a familiar version of the routine they'd developed during the second world war, but Peggy fell into step beside Steve as if it were yesterday. Steve held the last metal door open with a broad palm, letting the others bypass him outside, and then came up the rear.

Once outside, they ran a perimeter search, but Steve could feel eyes on him. He looked up, and there, stretched out lazily on the rooftop of the bunker, was an odd sight that brought him up short. A figure in some type of armored metal suit, burnished in vibrant red and gold, was in a nearly fully reclined position, holding a donut. The helmet bifurcated to reveal a face – a well-known face. 

“Don’t shoot, I come in peace,” Tony Stark said, taking a bite out of his donut. Around a mouthful of crumbs, he asked, “Which one of you is Peggy Carter?”

#

It occurred to Peggy, even as she aimed a weapon in Tony Stark’s direction, that she would have recognized that familiar brand of Stark arrogance and humor anywhere.

“What do you want?” she demanded.

Tony Stark smiled. “Ah, Peggy, I take it? Good to meet you. Given my dear ol’ dad left a substantial chunk of his wealth to you – and I do mean _substantial_ – I was curious about you. And then, funny thing, I get some alerts about a brunette digging around his medical records today. Then I started digging into who you were, and the whole high-level treason and multiple allegations of murder was not what I was expecting. Gotta say, if you’re one of my dad’s special lady friends, you’re more interesting than the last dozen. Dad sure did get freaky after mom died.”

“I am not,” Peggy said, flatly, “nor have I ever been one of Howard’s paramours.”

“Paramour?” Tony grinned. “I like that. That’s classy. So, just his immortal lady friend then?”

The words brought everything to a halt. 

Tony kept grinning. “Funny thing happens when my old man passes away. I get access to his things. Even the things that he didn’t want me to know about. Boundaries and I have always had a dysfunctional love/hate relationship.”

She could deny it, but she suspected he had proof – or Howard had, in any case. However, as neither senior nor junior Stark had any sort of proof regarding the others, Peggy decided to admit to what was already exposed, in the hopes of limiting any further fallout. She lowered her gun and gestured for the others to follow suit.

“What are you doing here?” Steve demanded.

“I’m sorry,” Tony replied, hopping down from the rooftop in his ridiculous metal suit in one easy jump. “Who are you?”

“The one asking questions,” Steve said.

Tony shook his head. “Oh, no, no, no. That’s not how any of this is going to work. Besides, the adults are talking. I have no clue who you are, besides a beefcake with a gun. Run along, muscles.”

“I don’t care how rich or important you think you are,” Steve replied flatly. “You’re not in charge here.”

Behind them, Bucky spoke up. “You realize we have you outnumbered and outgunned.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Outnumbered, yes. Outgunned? Not even if I were unconscious right now.” He paused, as if being conveyed information inside his suit. Peggy could vaguely hear a small male British voice. “Oh, no wait. This is interesting. You guys are the Winter Soldiers, huh? I wonder if the authorities would want to know all about this bunker. It’s got some really interesting inhabitants.”

“So, you’re threatening us now?” Steve said.

“Threatening.” Tony did a little head-bob. “Doing my civic duty, it’s the same thing. Of course, if you let Queen Elizabeth and me have a little chat, we can avoid any ugliness.”

Steve opened his mouth, no doubt to deliver a stinging rejoinder, but Peggy quickly cut in. “Steve,” Peggy said. “Why don’t you take everyone inside? I’ll handle Stark.”

“Handle me?” Tony said, with a patented Stark lascivious smile. Like father, like son. “Is that a promise?”

Steve looked like he wanted to deck him; Peggy might let him, if she didn’t beat him to the literal punch. Reluctantly, though, Steve gestured for Natasha and Bucky to join him as they walked back towards the bunker. Steve cast one last look back at Peggy and Tony, and then disappeared behind the door.

Peggy crossed the fields toward Tony. “If you’re concerned that I’ll claim my inheritance, rest assured I do not need a dime of your father’s money. Your treasure trove is safe.”

Peggy had more than enough of a nest-egg saved up, after living so long. They all did. 

Tony didn’t even acknowledge her words, studying her with a flat gaze and then smiling. “So, how old?” he asked. “You don’t look a day over… nine-hundred? A thousand? Am I batting low? Batting high? C’mon, give me a clue. The lack of wrinkles and liver spots makes it hard to pinpoint.”

“Has no one ever told you it’s impolite to ask after a woman’s age?”

“Not when she predates the Civil War, it isn’t.”

Peggy sighed. “What do you hope to gain by this meeting?”

“Just wanted to see what all the fuss was about,” Tony answered. “I’ve spent all day buried in Howard’s notes, and it’s really something, what he and Erskine had running. What’d he call it? A super soldier serum? Almost seemed too pie in the sky except for what they did with the Banner fellow. Poor guy. His blood pressure must be through the roof.”

Tony had discovered too much, clearly. That could be a problem. Still, on top of his obvious mania, Peggy could recognize the eccentric stirrings of a son’s grief. Tony Stark was in ten types of pain, whether he wanted to admit it or not. That probably made him reckless, if nothing else.

Instead of responding to anything he’d said, Peggy ventured, “What is that ridiculous suit you have on?”

“Oh, this? I call it Iron Man.”

“Absurd. You and your father have the same outlandish penchant for naming things.”

“Please don’t compare me to my father. I’m trying to have a civil conversation here.”

Peggy took a deep breath. “I’ll ask this only once more, Mr. Stark. What is it that you want?”

“Tony, please,” he said. “And I want what my father wanted. I want to know _everything_.”

#

Steve had no idea what was going on outside, and he didn’t like it. The wait couldn’t have been longer than twenty, maybe thirty minutes, but to Steve it felt an eternity, made more unbearable by the quartet of impatient people he had as company. Even Wanda, who normally hung back and lurked as the resident displaced teenager, seemed agitated by the presence of Tony Stark. Far more than she had been agitated since they’d rescued her.

“What is it?” Steve asked her.

She shook her head, frowning and a little angry, too. “It’s just… what I sense off him.”

“What?”

She locked eyes with Steve. _“Death.”_

Wanda was saved from clarifying – or Steve was saved from responding, either way – because Peggy had taken the elevator down. She was alone, Steve noted, but she made it quickly clear that she had negotiated some sort of truce with Tony Stark, but it required her to accompany him to Erskine’s facilities in Germany.

“You’re going with him?” Sam asked in surprise.

“Stark money funds the facility,” Peggy answered. “I can’t very well prevent him from going there, but I can mitigate what he gets when we arrive. I need to talk to Erskine – and the others. I know you all wanted to meet him, but for the moment, the best you can do is lay low and wait for a better opportunity for introductions. Tony Stark doesn’t seem like a man who’ll sit still for long, no matter how much this project may interest him. I’ll call you when the coast is clear.”

“You don’t know this guy,” Bucky said, frowning. “You don’t know what he’s after.”

“True,” Peggy replied. “But he could have gone about this a number of ways, and instead, in his own way, he was straightforward and frank about his interests.”

Natasha gave a reluctant head-nod of agreement. “He has the resources to take whatever he wants. Instead, he _asked._ ”

Sam snorted. “Asked. Yeah, after flashing his weird little suit and threatening us with Shield.”

Peggy’s fingers tapped impatiently against her thigh, a clear sign of apprehension. “Despite his poor manners, a trait he inherited from his father in spades, no matter how much it pains him to admit it, Tony has presented himself as candid in his curiosity. We’ll see about the rest.”

“So that’s it?” Wanda said, incredulous. “He asks and you’re going along?”

“It’s better than the alternative options.”

The entire time, Steve said nothing and absorbed everything. He didn’t like the idea of Peggy going along with Stark, but he couldn’t think of a better alternative that didn’t unnecessarily expose the rest of them. It was, unfortunately, their best play.

“We’ll need to leave the bunker, too,” Steve announced. “The place is blown.”

Sam sighed. “We’ll start packing. Bucky, man, you’re actually helping this time, no shitty excuses of pulled deltoids. C’mon, Wanda, as the resident newbie, you get the short straw with packing duties. You can do that weird hand thingie and just wave everything into boxes.”

“That’s not how it works, Sam,” Wanda said, scowling, but followed along.

Trailing behind them, Bucky seemed to disagree. “I’ve seen you do the hand thingie. That’s totally how it works.”

Natasha waited a beat. “You realize Tony Stark won’t stop digging until he finds out the truth about us, too.”

“I’ll do my level best to prevent that,” Peggy promised.

Natasha slowly nodded, and then left to follow the others.

Steve watched Peggy now, more worried for her in a way he didn't worry about himself – or the others. In a way it felt like Peggy was running again, even if he knew she didn’t have much of a choice. It wasn’t running, necessarily. She was being forced to deflect, a skill she had likely honed to a razor-sharp skill while engaged in her espionage work with Shield all this while. She would not be out of her element. Except, of course, Steve couldn’t shake the sense of unease. They had lost so much time, and now they were being pulled apart again. He knew better than anyone how easily Peggy could burrow and hide.

“Two weeks,” he told her. “Two weeks, and we meet up again.”

Peggy frowned. “That might not be enough time.”

“I don’t care,” he declared, arms folded over his chest. “Two weeks, or I’ll be coming for you. We still have things to sort out, Peggy.”

She didn’t disagree with that, looking away. “I don’t want to leave it like this either, Steve. We have little options.”

He knew that. He didn’t like it, but he knew it to be true. The story of his life lately.

“Perhaps this is for the best,” Peggy said. “Distance will bring clarity.”

He couldn’t keep the sour taste out of his voice. “Seventy years not long enough for you?”

“Not for me,” she told him. “For you. Surely you must realize you need time to sort through your own feelings, Steve.”

“I know what I feel.”

“I think you’re so twisted and bent out of shape, you have no idea which way is up. And I’m to blame for that, I know. For what it’s worth, I am sorry for hurting you. It was never my intention. I can only hope this little bit of distance will make things… _clearer_ for you.”

He frowned. She might have been right, but the idea of distance still felt like a bitter reminder that he might only have precious little time left with her. But perhaps this short-term respite was for the best. God knew he’d never sort his thoughts out with her so tangibly close that he needed to constantly remind himself not to reach out for her. For countless generations he’d had the security of time, and now it felt like it was all running out. It didn’t matter that their relationship was fractured. If Peggy was to choose mortality, he still wanted to be by her side – as a friend, if nothing else. In the larger picture of things, he could forgo ever holding her or kissing her again if he had to. He needed to sort out his head and his heart, but on one thing every bit of him agreed. Peggy was a cornerstone for him. Always had been. There was no point in denying that. 

If she couldn’t be his lover, then perhaps they could be something else. It would be novel to think of Peggy as just a friend when for so long she’d been so much more. He’d have to reacclimate so many things in his head, but it was a better thought than the gaping missing piece that her absence would afford. He’d done that these last few decades, and he had no taste for it whatsoever.

Friends.

The concept would take getting used to, but it would be better that way, wouldn’t it? 

Swallowing the unpleasant aftertaste, Steve took a breath and turned away. “Two weeks,” he told her again. 

Peggy nodded.

#


	10. Chapter 10

#

The next few days charted out a new course for them, which Steve found included a surprising new development of Peggy wanting to stay in touch. Maybe it was some sort of apology or mitigation, in her own way, for some of the damage she had made. Whatever the rationale, he wasn’t questioning it. After she initially left, he got a voicemail the following morning informing him that she’d arrived in Germany without issue through Tony Stark’s private charter. Steve never called her back, unsure if he’d catch her at a bad time, and was surprised when he had a text message waiting for him in the afternoon.

The first text was like a shot in the dark, a timid overture of just a picture of an infamous German chocolate bar, his favorite from ages and ages ago, with a caption indicating she’d picked up several candy bars for when they next met up. It was, without fanfare or drama, an acknowledgement that she had planned to keep her two-week deadline, a promise that she wouldn’t disappear into the wind like she had for so long. Yet Steve immediately recognized that she must have been hesitant to even send it out, because the text felt like it was relayed with such an uncharacteristically cautious attitude. He knew it was a gamble, for her, to send this out. He knew she wasn’t sure if he would respond, or even accept the text in the spirit it had been intended. 

He texted back, of course, telling Peggy to make sure she saved some of the chocolate for him.

What followed was a string of unexpected communications. And it was strange to communicate with Peggy like this, because for so long the only form of communication they had managed whenever they were long-distance always came in the form of a letter. This didn’t have the formality of a letter, however. This didn’t have his latest sketches or doodles drawn into the margins (all designed to make her laugh), or her familiar and crisp handwriting, or any declarations of longing that absence had laid out for either of them. Instead, it was short, but usually superficial and even jovial. Occasionally, real intelligence of some weighty significance was conveyed as well. Observations about Tony’s probing into Erskine’s project, or concerns about Wanda’s ability to adapt to their new lifestyle. But it was mostly communication that wasn’t necessary, which meant it was Peggy reaching out simply because she _wanted_ to.

As for the rest of the team, everyone took the two weeks as a chance to go their separate ways and recoup. Natasha and Bucky left for the west coast, absconding away into one of their villas off the coast of Carmel. Sam retreated to Fort Bragg, where his boyfriend was currently stationed. Steve got daily check-ins from everyone.

Wanda stuck around with Steve, but they relocated to some skiing spot in Colorado that was a big touristy draw during the winter, posing as brother and little sister. Wanda liked drinking these weird little green concoctions in the mornings, made of apples, chia seeds, spinach or something nonsensical like that. The initial few days he rose first in the morning, he tried to make the drink, but Wanda told him he got it wrong every time. So, Steve stuck to making his own coffee, black and simple. Most mornings, though, there was already a cup waiting for him on the table when he got up.

“What's on the agenda today?” Wanda asked.

“Can’t say we have much to do. You’d be surprised how much of immortality is just… _waiting_.”

“Waiting for Tony Stark to grow bored with the idea of never dying, you mean?” Wanda sighed. “I still don’t understand why we can’t go to Germany now. We can keep a low profile there as much as here.”

Steve frowned. Not so much because he disagreed with Wanda, but because he _didn’t._ Leaving Peggy to deal with the fallout of any Tony Stark nonsense left Steve feeling more wound tight than anything. He knew she could handle it, but now that he’d had her back in his life, in whatever capacity, he found he liked the distance even less than before. The feeling also informed him of something more profound. If he couldn’t handle a few weeks of distance, what was he going to do if or when Peggy turned mortal? He knew, in theory, it’d be best to keep his head on straight – be a friend. But a bigger part of him also realized that was a bit like locking the barn door after the horse had bolted. He wasn’t sure if it was possible for him to be friends with Peggy. Even texting energized him in a way he knew was not platonic, even if the subject matter was nothing but innocuous. 

The days melted by, but one week before the deadline, he got bad news from Natasha. “Clint finally came back,” she told him, over the phone, “with positive IDs on the people that tried to ambush us in that factory. They’re a group of mercenaries that usually work for fortune five hundred companies. Steve, one of the known clienteles is Stark Industries.”

Steve felt a wave of cold sweep through him. If Tony Stark had hired hitmen to bring in Natasha, Bucky, and Sam, that meant he already knew about the team’s immortality. That meant he was willing to get his hands bloody to get a hold of them. 

That meant Peggy was in danger.

He sent a text to Peggy immediately. _‘We need to talk,’_ knowing the words were, and had only ever been, the harbinger of bad news.

She called less than ten minutes later, on a secure line. “We’ve got a problem,” he greeted, forgoing the _hello_. After he explained Natasha’s intelligence, there was a lengthy pause on the other end. “You have to get out of there,” Steve told her. “You can’t trust that man.”

But Peggy was processing the news, slowly. “It doesn’t make sense,” she argued. “Why did he need Natasha, Bucky, and Sam? He already has willing subjects here with me and the others. Erskine is the golden goose. Not anyone else.”

“I’m not trying to figure out why Tony Stark wants us. I’m just trying to make sure he doesn’t _get_ us. That includes you.”

Peggy didn’t agree. “We should stay the course. If he isn’t to be trusted, I can get answers from here far better than if we run.”

“Peggy,” he sighed, scrubbing a hand through his hair. “You don’t know this guy. You can’t trust him.”

“I know, and I’m not saying I do, but it doesn’t make sense, Steve.”

“It does if his endgame is the Super-Soldier Serum, and he doesn’t care how many people he hurts to get it.”

“Erskine understands he needs to hold off on perfecting the cure while Tony is here,” Peggy assured him.

A knot of worry festered in Steve’s stomach. “How close is he,” he asked, trying to be even with his tone, “to the cure?”

He must not have managed it. There was clear hesitation in Peggy’s voice on the other end. “I—I honestly believe he would have tried a clinical trial on us already, if Tony hadn’t been present. Thor and Valkyrie have already been summoned into town, although they’re keeping a low profile. Or their version of a low profile, anyway.”

Steve’s frown intensified. From what he knew of the other immortals (aside from the self-made immortal, Dr. Banner), they were a rambunctious lot. 

“Steve,” Peggy said. “I know what Tony presents himself as, but I don’t believe he’s behind the ambush.”

“What makes you say that?”

Peggy sighed as she admitted, “It’s not his style. Look, this morning, he informed me that he’d gathered hard evidence against Ward and Thompson. He also gathered information about the Winter Soldier’s targets, proving them to be related to Hydra operatives. He didn’t have to do that. He didn’t have to check into the matter, but he left me a file on them with my breakfast, like it was _nothing_. He sent it in to Shield as well, and I know Fury well enough to know he’ll have Coulson look into it. It could very well clear me from treason charges, Steve. It could help keep the heat off the Winter Soldiers, at least by Shield’s account.”

Steve found himself releasing an exhale of surprise.

“I can’t explain it,” Peggy continued, “but he inspires the same mixture of exasperation and endearment that his father used to inspire. I will admit I’m at an utter loss on how to deal with him, however. Howard Stark just needed a firm hand and the occasional left hook. With his son, god only knows what could curtail him from his ambitions.”

Steve had heard rumors that his secretary, a woman named Pepper Potts, was infamous in her ability to handle Tony Stark, but at this point from Peggy’s various stories and descriptions, Steve remained skeptical that _anyone_ could rein him in.

“Are you saying you’re beginning to trust him?”

Peggy sounded somber over the phone, if not outright austere. “I know he’s a filthy rich playboy with the impulse control of a teenager. But despite his penchant for arrogance and outlandish behavior… I don’t think Tony Stark is a corrupt man. I don’t think he’s the type of man to send goons to kill or capture people.”

Steve could hear most of what she left unsaid, and he knew it was probably at least the tiniest bit driven by her grief over Howard. It would be easy to assume she was conflating the father and the son, but Steve knew Peggy better than that. Her instincts were to _distrust,_ not trust. Clearly, she had seen something of Tony Stark in the last week, something that had made her soften. For Peggy, that was nothing short of a small miracle. 

She’d always been a good judge of character, though. 

“We might need to delay our meet,” Peggy continued. “It’s too dangerous right now.”

“You’re right in that we need to rethink our timeline,” he declared, in a tone Peggy would recognize as inflexible. “I’ll tell the others to hold back for the moment, but I’m coming immediately. You’re going to have to deal with that little complication.”

“Oh, for goodness sake, Steve. You’re being stubborn for the sake of being stubborn.”

“You would know, Peg.”

She sighed. “So, what is your plan? You walk into Erskine’s facilities, and what? Ask for the dime tour? Tony Stark is many things, but he’s not an idiot.”

“He doesn’t even have to know I’m in town,” Steve argued.

“This man has the pulse on everything here.”

“A minute ago, you didn’t think he was that bad of a guy.” 

“There’s a difference between beginning to regard a man’s value, and me trusting him with your life, darling.”

The moment the endearment slipped from her mouth two things happened. The first, Steve felt a swell of warmth rise in him. The second, his conviction to go to Germany became a certainty. He wondered if she even realized when she said the endearment, or if it was so unthinking that she never even picked up on it. It wasn’t the first time she’d made the slip in calling him that, since they reunited, and each and every time it sent a thrill through him, a buzz that reaffirmed in Steve the condemnation that he would never be satisfied with just being her friend. 

“I’m worried,” Peggy admitted, quietly, “that you’re going to unnecessarily expose yourself.”

“This is my choice, Peggy,” Steve answered, tiredly. There was a lengthy pause as he took a steadying breathe. He understood exactly where she was coming from, but it changed little about his answer. “Peggy,” he said, flatly, “You need someone to watch your back.”

She sighed, a rare admittance of defeat. “Fine, but do try to stay below radar. I’ll meet you at the airport. Since I’m staying in the same hotel as Tony, you’ll have to make other arrangements. I can ask Thor to keep you at his place. It’s downtown, and a little loud, but it’ll be easy to disappear in the crowds. You won’t be noticed.”

“Crowds?”

“Thor and Valkyrie own a nightclub. _The Asgard._ He lives above it.” 

Steve wasn’t excited about the prospect, but he wasn’t going to be picky either. “He’ll be all right with that?”

“ _Delighted_ , I’m sure. He’s been eager to meet you ever since I told him about you.”

“What did you tell him about me?”

“The truth, that you’re like me. That you’re my…” she broke off, awkwardly, as if she didn’t know herself how to fill in the next word. 

Taking pity on her, Steve said, “I’ll be in on the next flight. I’ll text you the information.”

He hung up shortly thereafter, turning around in surprise to find Wanda staring at him. 

“I’m coming with,” Wanda declared.

He shook his head. His plan was clearly to send her to Sam, or barring that, to Natasha and Bucky. “It’s too dangerous. We don’t know what we’re walking into.”

“One would think a clairvoyant would be beneficial to have on hand, then.”

He frowned. “It’s too dangerous,” he repeated.

She sighed in annoyance. “Steve, I am an immortal psychic with powers that could break you in a dozen different ways, and that’s before I even decide to get creative. You do not need to worry about me.”

“You’re sixteen years old.”

“And you’re dealing with a man people call the Merchant of Death,” Wanda declared of Tony. “Whether you like it or not, I am a part of this team now. I am a part of whatever happens to you and the others. Would you deny them the right to defend themselves?”

Steve didn’t have a good response for that.

“Good,” Wanda declared, without waiting for him to answer. “I’ll pack my bag. I hear Germany is chilly this time of year.”

#

"So what do we do now?" Bruce Banner asked, as Peggy re-entered the laboratory. "We can’t keep Tony at bay forever."

The question had a bit of a wry tone to it, not quite warning, because she never heard Bruce utter a single word in actual antagonism, outside of his short and rather shocking bouts as the Other Guy – but even then, Hulk never really used his words much. She couldn’t fault Bruce for the skepticism; she had her fair share of doubts. Unfortunately, they also didn’t have many other options.

On the other end of the room, Dr. Abraham Erskine turned around, pushing his glasses further up his sharp nose. “We carry on, do we not, Agent Carter?”

“As you well know, Abe, I’m no longer with Shield.”

“Old habits,” he said, as if he hadn’t known Peggy predating her Shield employment. He bustled about the room, loading a specimen into a centrifuge. “We have many things to discuss in the coming days, especially with the arrival of Agent Carter’s special friend. I presume that was who you were on the phone with, just now?” 

Peggy raised an eyebrow one tiny calibrated amount. “Yes, it was.” Her tone warned against further colorful commentary.

Erskine nodded, entirely undaunted. “I thought so. You have a look on your face after speaking to him that is… _unique_ , I should say.”

Peggy ignored this. The old man liked to tease, a gentle-almost-grandfatherly-way for a former-warrior whose kill count probably outshone her own two-to-one. But Peggy had no interest in finding out what kind of look, if any, she had on her face after speaking with Steve. Everybody seemed to have their opinions about her mysterious immortal ex-beau. Peggy didn’t want to hear any of it. They had only found out about Steve’s existence days ago, so they should have hardly been in the position to tease her. 

The entire thing felt rather like a bad joke at times, given what they used to be to each other. She couldn’t help but feel ridiculous that her longest relationship that had spanned centuries was now reduced to these antics. As much as it confused her to contemplate it, it felt very much like she was on the precipice of something with Steve, like they were being pulled together like magnets; Peggy found it exceedingly hard to stop thinking about him after only a few days together, especially after she’d managed nearly a century apart. 

Bruce stood to help Erskine prepare another batch of solutions. “There’s only so many precautions we can take,” Bruce warned, and he would know that better than anyone. “If you’re determined to test out the latest version of the serums, we should think about moving to another facility while Tony is here.”

Erskine shook his head. “No need. I’ve already taken the necessary precautions.”

“Like what?” Peggy asked doubtfully.

Erskine smiled enigmatically. “You worry too much, young lady.”

It was all Peggy could do not to glare, because he was literally the only person on the entire planet that could get away with calling her that. Before she could respond, the main doors opened and Tony Stark walked in – sauntered in, more like, a pair of Twizzlers caught between his teeth. As he finished chewing, he waved distractedly at the occupants of the room before pulling up a 3-D holographic image over the corner tabletop. Peggy didn’t know what he was looking at – in fact, she didn’t understand much of anything in the lab.

Aside from the serums, there were a number of projects operating at full speed in Erskine’s facility. It was a virtual cornucopia of experiments, everything from genetic manipulation to next gen prosthetics to unnamed military applications with the Department of Defense. The advancements of projects in Erskine’s lab was not difficult to comprehend, considering the principal architects present and accounted for, but Tony’s addition to the team had revitalized some of the flagging projects in ways that neither Erskine nor Bruce had anticipated. Tony brought about a fresh prospective, even for a man whose self-professed areas of interests did not inherently intersect with biology or chemistry. Despite this, Tony was every bit of a savant in the sciences as his father. He’d already pushed the clinical trials of one particularly promising cancer treatment into high gear, and he’d tinkered with the machinery of a project that Dr. Helen Cho had designed, a Regeneration Cradle, something revolutionary meant to rebuild damaged skin and organs. The Cradle heavily utilized information from the immortal projects, not that Dr. Cho realized that.

There was plenty to distract and titillate Tony Stark, lighting him up like a kid in a candy store, but his focus always and inevitably reverted to one project. The Serums. 

“Well, well, well,” Tony said in a bored tone. “You guys have become bizarrely restrained in your serum trials lately. A groundbreaking and highly experimental study that is scared of its own shadow? Historically, not awesome.”

Bruce walked over to stand next to Tony, staring out at the 3-D image of… whatever it was. “We’ve learned from some brutal mistakes in the past, Tony. Big, green-sized mistakes that have levelled houses.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I get that, but you’ll find that cautiousness doesn’t really run in my DNA. You’re tiptoeing, Big Fella. Don’t think I haven’t noticed. You all need to get out and stretch.”

Peggy quietly excused herself, having heard enough of the Bruce-and-Tony happy hour to have her fill for the day. It was surprising how he’d managed to win over Bruce, a terribly recalcitrant man who wasn’t known for his ability to form instant friendships with anyone. Peggy had known the man for than a decade and could hardly say she knew him particularly well. 

She was surprised when Erskine followed her out of the laboratory a moment later, catching up to her with quick efficient strides. "He has that effect on people," Erskine said of Tony, as if reading her mind. "I haven’t seen Bruce open up like that to anyone in some time. Well, perhaps Thor, after the accident. But those were strange circumstances."

Peggy didn’t have anything to offer in response. By the set of his shoulders, Erskine seemed unconcerned about Tony, and Peggy knew she needed to inform him of Steve’s latest intelligence regarding the dead paramilitary men and their attempts at an ambush. 

“We need to talk,” Peggy told him. “In private.”

They found privacy in an empty lab on the third floor. Peggy checked to make sure they were alone before she conveyed the news of the paramilitary men to Erskine. His lips pressed into a thin line at the news, but still he didn’t seem overly concerned. Displaying a nonchalance that Peggy found suspicious, he absorbed the information but didn’t particularly react to it.

“Why are you so calm?” Peggy asked him.

Erskine gave a wry smile. “I am, of course, disturbed by the information, but a group of military men attacking your brethren can hardly be an occasion out of the norm. Am I wrong?”

Peggy frowned. “No, it’s not unusual. But given the current extenuating circumstances—”

“There are always current extenuating circumstances,” Erskine finished, evenly. 

Peggy was used to a certain amount of a Zen-like qualities from Erskine, but this was bordering on the extreme. “What is it?” she asked suspiciously. “What has got you so…” she searched for a word, realizing the best description she could apply to him was that of being _content_. As soon as she made the realization, her mind quickly supplied a number of reasons for him being so, and landed on the most obvious reason. “You’ve done it, haven’t you? You’ve perfected the cure.”

He only offered a smile, shaking his head. “As preceptive as ever, Agent Carter.”

Before she could question any further, Erskine reached over to an empty beaker on a nearby countertop. He tipped it over, watching it fall and shatter to the ground. He picked up a broken piece of the glass, and casually, sliced open a small cut across his forearm. Peggy watched, rapt, as the blood swelled from the cut, and then sat, undisturbed, refusing to heal. The cut endured.

“I administered it to myself yesterday,” Erskine announced, eyes dancing. “I am, from all tests and points of authority, a mortal man now.”

Peggy had to sit down, and did so, quite heavily, staring at Erskine with tears of shock in her eyes. “You’ve done it? You’ve actually done it, without any adverse side-effects?”

“Well, I’m mortal now, with the average hazard of dying at any given minute.” He laughed. “I suppose that’s an adverse side-effect.”

Peggy couldn’t believe it. It was too much. Despite the decades’ long pursuit, the revelation that Erskine had perfected the immortality cure – on himself, no less – was such a monumental thing to have been revealed so casually. She needed a minute.

“Have you told the others?” she asked.

“Thor and Valkyrie were informed last night,” he answered. “I haven’t told Bruce yet. I don’t know if this cure will have any effect on his… _condition._ As for Tony, you needn’t worry about him getting his hands on this or the Super Soldier Serum. The only place where both serum formulas are kept is,” he knocked the side of his head, indicating his noggin, “here.”

Peggy nodded, numbly.

Erskine watched her rather closely for a moment. “Are you all right, my dear?”

“What? Oh, yes, I just… it’s a lot to process.”

“This has been what we’ve been steadily working towards for quite some time.”

“Yes, yes,” Peggy answered, feeling overwhelmed. “I just… I thought I would have some sort of time to prepare myself. You really did it.”

“I did,” he acknowledged, and kept staring at her. “But that doesn’t mean, of course, that you have to do it as well.”

And there was rub, the name to her shock. Now that Erskine had proven a successful cure, the choice was now in front of her and could no longer remain hypothetical. It wasn’t some abstract endgame, but a clear-cut decision presented to her. Was she to take the cure? For the first time in her obscenely long and complicated life, the decision of mortality was one she could make for herself. 

“I—I don’t know,” Peggy admitted, feeling silly. She wasn’t normally caught so flat-footed. “I thought I’d be better prepared to answer when the time came, but… I find myself strangely indecisive all of a sudden.”

But her indecision had a clear name. 

_Steve._

#

Steve landed in Frankfurt late into Friday evening with Wanda and two carryon suitcases at his side. He pulled on his baseball cap and glasses, and then cleared customs with a pair of impeccable American passports. Sam had reason to be proud of himself this time.

He found Peggy waiting for them at the baggage claim in a stylish A-line dress, a bold red color, the hemline short and with a lengthy slit up her right thigh. Her hair was styled carefully into an elaborate chignon. Steve was momentarily struck by how much more sleek she’d grown since the war, the modern dress acknowledging Peggy’s curves as a highlighted fact of her physique. She looked fresh and put-together, far more than a standard deviation away from the fatigues and casual wear he’d seen her in recently. Which, of course, made sense as Natasha had supplied the clothing at the bunker, and Natasha always preferred functionality over everything else. It helped that Natasha knew she could look good in a potato sack. But Steve remembered all too well that Peggy had always had a different style, one that never sacrificed an inch of femininity while maintaining a clear air of proficiency. Here and now, Steve was seeing what that looked like in the twenty-first century _._

They didn’t hug. Peggy had never been one for casual intimacy, and for once Steve was thankful because the idea of contact with her stripped of everything it was supposed to mean was grating. Besides, there was a pronounced frown when she noticed Wanda’s unexpected presence at his side. 

“Pleasant trip?” Peggy asked, neutrally.

Wanda gave a very put-upon sigh. One of the things that Steve had already come to understand about the girl was that she did not handle international travel well. “Eleven hours in third class, the seats the size of a peanut, and the in-flight entertainment system was down. Steve spent more time than he should have regaling me with stories about the rise and fall of the Ottoman Empire.”

“You need to know your history,” Steve defended himself.

“Why?” Wanda argued. “You’re ancient enough to know all the historical information I could possibly want to know, at least tenfold.”

To this, Peggy hid a smile rather weakly under a ducked head. Steve decided to curtail any further discussion by gesturing for Peggy to lead the way to the car. She ushered them outside into the chilly night air, directing both parties to a small car that was barely big enough for Steve to fit into. He folded his legs into the front passenger seat, grunting in annoyance as his knees locked into place. It wasn’t long before they were driving by a strange mixture of skyscrapers and half-timbered buildings seeped in old-fashioned appeal, standing almost side-by-side with each other. The place was as varied as it came, a careful combination of old world and new. Steve liked the charm of it, having lived both worlds.

“Are we meeting the others tonight?” Steve asked.

“Just Thor and Valkyrie,” Peggy answered. 

Wanda leaned forward in the backseat. “What about Dr. Erskine?”

“Not yet,” Peggy answered, a little evasively, looking away.

Steve could see there was something larger in the statement, but Peggy exchanged a sidelong glance with him, the look promising to tell him more later when they had privacy. 

The drive didn’t take long as they soon found themselves near the riverfront, pulling up to a large building that had a rope line full of young people waiting clad in skimpy clothes despite the nippy weather; the line wrapped around the block. The sign at the front was neon green, labeling the nightclub as _The Asgard_. They parked not far away, but Steve felt like he could hear the pulsing music a block before they hit the building. They rolled their suitcases alongside them to the front, as the bouncer recognized Peggy on sight and let her skirt the line and entrance fee.

To be frank, he wasn’t looking forward to the nightclub scene, but that was circumvented by his impatience to meet the others. He was thankful when they bypassed the crowds and headed up the elevator to the second-floor loft, where Peggy produced a key. For a moment, he wondered what kind of relationship Peggy had with Thor that she was trusted with his apartment key, but he recognized enough about himself to know that misplaced jealousy probably fueled the question. When they pushed through the door and let it close behind him, he was thankful the apartment had soundproof walls because the pulsating music went from headache-inducing to a quiet background noise.

“I guess Thor is downstairs,” Peggy announced, looking around at the vacant apartment. “You can set your stuff down and change, if you like. I’ll wait.”

Steve glanced down at his outfit with a frown. He’d taken his time choosing his clothes in the morning, knowing he’d be greeted by Peggy first thing off the airplane. Nevertheless, all of a sudden, his clothes felt lacking – his regular dark slacks, a buttoned up white collar shirt, and a fitted brown bomber jacket. He didn’t think he had anything more appropriate to wear to a club, but Peggy stared at him, gaze intent and locked, and announced he was fine in what he was wearing. Steve thought he should argue, but he kind of liked the look she was giving him.

Wanda, on the other hand, eagerly changed, emerging from the bathroom an absurd amount of time later, make-up freshly applied, hair down in soft waves, wearing a matching bright scarlet vest and jacket ensemble. Steve was quick to point out that although she passed the bar’s age limit (barely), she didn’t qualify to drink anything alcoholic.

Wanda gave him an affronted look. “I’m an immortal.”

“You’re a teenager,” he countered, feeling like a broken record. 

“You’re going to have to let that one go, on technicality if nothing else,” Wanda challenged.

“If I see one drink in your hand,” he warned, “you’re barred from the club entirely.”

Wanda frowned, but sighed in defeat, nodding. 

Downstairs, the place was packed like sardines. Any conversation quickly got lost as they entered the club with the music pounding from every corner of the room. Strobes of light flashed across the dance floor, and the place must have had three hundred, maybe four hundred people, easily. It looked almost like a mosh pit. The music was upbeat and fast, and loud. Very, very loud.

Peggy pushed her way to the front, towards the DJ set up near the wall on a raised platform. There was a woman behind the speakers – young-looking, beautiful, dark skinned, with sharp cheekbones and her short thick hair in crinkled dreadlocks. She saw Peggy approaching, lifting an eyebrow as she pulled off her headphones, and smirked widely.

“Guys,” Peggy introduced, almost screaming to make herself heard. “This is Valkyrie. Val, this is Steve and Wanda.”

Before Steve could manage to respond, however, he was bodily lifted off the ground by someone behind him, and he found himself caught in a bearhug. 

“And _that’s_ Thor,” Peggy announced, smiling with laughter in her eyes.

“Brother!” the man announced excitedly, with a booming voice.

Steve felt himself being placed back on the ground. It was a strange sensation, to realize he was perhaps smaller in stature when in comparison to someone else, but Thor was all muscles, all grinning. The next few moments were lost as everyone greeted each other, quickly making their way to the cordoned off section behind the DJ booth. It didn’t take long to figure out Thor was friendly and gregarious in his laughter, and Valkyrie liked her drink and her sarcasm. They seemed to hold the philosophy that life was too short, even for an immortal, not to have fun and enjoy themselves. Steve got the sense he could like them, but the mood was quickly being killed by the atmosphere of the club. Steve couldn’t hardly hear himself _think._

Valkyrie and Wanda seemed to immediately hit it off, chatting in the lounger while they laughed about something. Thor, on the other hand, seemed to take his hosting duties to heart, waving pitchers of beer and the finest alcohol over to their table. 

“So much has happened since I last saw you,” Thor told Peggy. “I lost my hamster, like yesterday, so that's still fresh. Then I went on a journey of self-discovery—”

“ _Drugs_ ,” Valkyrie supplied.

“—and now I’m meeting your new fella! He’s much bigger than I imagined,” Thor boasted with a grin, approving. “Better suited for you than the last guy. Daniel was so… _tiny_.”

Who the hell was Daniel?

Next to Steve, Peggy winched slightly and looked the other way. 

“So how old are you?” Thor asked pleasantly. “One thousand, two thousand?”

Steve smiled, good-naturedly. “Around eight hundred or so.”

“Oh, a young one! You probably were after the time of the gods. They called me the God of Thunder, y’know. In Norse mythology.”

Steve nodded. “I’ve heard of that, yeah.”

“Have you got any nicknames?”

“They, uh, they called me Captain America during World War II?”

“Oh, oh.” Thor nodded. “Captain, that’s cool. That’s _mighty_. Still not a god, but very… intimidating nonetheless!”

Steve wasn’t sure how to respond to that, but he was saved from a response when a shadow fell across the table. Steve looked up from where he was sitting, to find Tony Stark standing at the edge of the platform. 

“So, this is where all the action is,” he greeted everybody, and rested against the lounger at the end, smirking at Steve. “Rogers, right? What are you doing in town?”

“Tony,” Peggy answered, and before Steve could think up a response, she surreptitiously reached for Steve’s hand and placed it on her knee. Her dress had voyaged a little high on her thigh, and he felt the warmth of her bare skin against his palm. “He’s with me.”

Tony lifted an eyebrow. “International booty call?”

“Don’t be a right arse, Tony. What are you doing here?”

“Erskine’s lovely company and all, but his 9 pm curfew leaves something to be desired. What better place to get a feel of the nightlife in Germany than _Asgard_?” Tony turned towards Thor and Valkyrie, clearly already familiar with them. “Love the place! Have you thought about upgrading the speakers? I could get you something that’ll blow the roof off this place.”

It wasn’t until that moment, however, that he noticed Wanda’s presence in the corner. He homed in on the teenager with surprise blooming on his face. “Who’s the jailbait?” he asked.

Wanda glared back and left the table in a huff. Steve decided to let her go, figuring the less Tony interacted with her, the better. He watched as Wanda disappeared into the crowd, briefly concerned, but Peggy leaned over and whispered into his ear, “She’ll be fine. She can move things with her mind, remember?”

Steve nodded, ignoring the sensation of her breath against his ear. 

Things got even more uncomfortable after that. Steve felt like he couldn’t ask a damn question, not with Tony around. Thor and Valkyrie seemed to take everything in stride, but something about Tony rubbed him the wrong way. He sat impatiently while everyone shouted at each other over the music, and even when Peggy stretched alongside him, presumably to sell the cover to Tony, he sat in a foul mood. 

He watched the crowds for a while, gyrating against each other with little talent or skill. He was definitely getting old, because dancing used to have _moves_ to it, a pastime that he’d mastered with Peggy over generations, from the dances accompanying the annual celebration in honor of the God of Wine, to the Renaissance fairs or life at royal court, to the waltzes in seventieth century Vienna, or the Irish jig in the countryside, to the tango in _Río de la Plata_ , and those 1920s swing dances that used to make Peggy laugh until she cried. They never had Natasha’s mastery of the art, especially given she’d become a prima ballerina in the Moscow Ballet over a century ago, but Steve and Peggy prized dancing more than most other pastimes. They always had.

This hardly seemed to be anything like that.

“Stop scowling,” Peggy urged, into his ear. 

He would respond, but he didn’t see the point as he’d have to yell the answer.

Peggy sighed, stood, and offered her hand. “Dance with me?”

Steve stared up at her. There was no life, in this one or the next, that he could ever refuse her that, even if he wasn’t a fan of the style. He took her hand and followed her to the dancefloor. They had to jostle their way through the crowd to find even the smallest opening, but then Peggy was there, pulling him against her frame, wrapping her arms around him. His hands instinctively fell to her hips.

“You’re only raising Tony’s suspicions,” Peggy chided him, speaking more freely now. “Why are you letting him get under your skin?”

Steve shrugged, unable to articulate it – not that it mattered. No one around them cared what they were discussing. The probing lights overhead, the mosh pit of people, the suffocating air should have ruined the moment, but Steve was hyperaware of his hands settling low against the small of her back, just above the curve of her ass. One of her hands rested against his bicep, and he saw her squeeze once, twice, as if testing the strength of his muscles, shamelessly pleased by her assessment. He quirked an eyebrow at her. 

Peggy suddenly smiled up at him, a playful smile, and the mood went electric, a challenge to engage in the dance rather than protest it. Despite himself, Steve found himself fighting back a smile, and then she turned around, pressing her backside against the length of him, leaning heavily, and – _oh_. Steve could enjoy this type of dancing, after all. The move made him think of other times her body was pressed against his, and Steve swung her around, out and then in, towards him, against his chest.

He took more liberties, after that. Hands sliding over her dress, against her curves, and she was equally as spirited and enterprising. The music and the scantily dressed hordes throbbed around them, but for once he used that to his advantage to crowd against Peggy, feeling the shell of her ear against his lips as he said, “I’ve missed this.”

She pressed herself closer, hands folding around his neck. He inhaled her perfume, a new one that he didn’t recognize yet, but already loved. Her perfumes had changed so much over the years, but underneath that there was the familiar smell of her sweat and warmth, an intoxicating cocktail that he could recognize anywhere, as familiar in the bedroom as it was out on the battlefield. 

He could tell he wasn’t the only one being affected by their proximity, either.

Peggy looked up at him under half-lowered lashes, a hooded look. “Tell me what you’re thinking right now,” she braved in a low voice.

He couldn’t. It wasn’t words meant to be spoken in public, even in this crowd. 

But Peggy was never as embarrassed as him, not when it came to certain things. “I’m thinking about the first time I brought you back to Rome,” she told him. “1298.”

 _Oh, Jesus_. The first time they’d ever danced. They’d circled around each other all night long, and as soon they’d separated from the crowds, Peggy had him shoved up against a wall, down on her knees as the party raged in the background, pails of fermented ale flowing freely among the troops. He’d lost all semblance of control with her mouth around him, sucking him off. 

_Fuck._ He needed to stop this before they got carried away.

“Let’s get some air,” Steve suggested.

She was right behind him as he made his way outside. This late, the rope line had finally thinned, only a few stragglers and people outside bumming a smoke. Steve and Peggy retreated a distance, then stopped, loitering in the alleyway with the biting cold serving as a calming influence for them both. When he looked over, Peggy was staring off into the distance, her jaw clenched tightly enough that he knew she was grinding teeth. 

When she met his eyes, he could see regret there. “Sorry,” she said, shamefully. “I probably shouldn’t have…”

He nodded, hands shoved in his pockets, barely restraining himself from reaching out for her. It was one thing to flirt and tease, but they were venturing far beyond that, and he needed to keep himself in check. He wasn’t going to pursue anything with Peggy while she was still contemplating taking the cure. He couldn’t handle the fall out of that. They stood like that for a while, in awkward silence that stretched out, before he saw something else in her eyes, a dread that was so naked that even a casual observer would have been able to identify it.

“Peggy?”

“He’s done it,” Peggy told him, bluntly. “Erskine gave himself the cure and it worked. There’s one less immortal in the world now.”

There was a very lengthy beat of silence. In the end, all Steve thought to say was, “ _Jesus.”_

Peggy nodded, looking away.

She was scared. For a moment, he wondered of what. She might have been scared of his reaction, but this had been building for a while, and he’d had a few days now to get used to the idea of it. The sting wasn’t as sharp as it had been when he first learned of her secrets. It wasn’t gone, either, but he could face her now without a bitter taste choking at his throat.

But Peggy was scared, and it took a moment for him to realize it wasn’t his reaction she feared. It was because she had no idea what to do, herself. She turned back to face him, holding his stare for a long beat, her head cocked to the side, normally an immoveable force to his unstoppable object. Only she felt far more pliable now, looking every bit as confused and nervous as he’d ever seen her. 

It gave him hope. 

Maybe, just maybe, he still had a shot with her. The idea emboldened him.

“You’re wavering,” he said, almost gleefully.

She winced as she pulled back, a brief, aborted little thing, badly hidden and a far cry from her normal composure. She never wavered. Peggy picked a direction and charged ahead with a firm resolve that could, and _had_ , toppled armies.

“You’re thinking about not taking it,” Steve forged ahead, encouraged by every passing second she refused to deny his words. 

Peggy glared. “I don’t know what I’m thinking.”

“That’s not like you.”

Her expression was tight and conflicted. “This was easier before,” she admitted, and he could hear the unspoken words. _Before you came back into my life._ “I had a plan, or at least an outline of one. Now everything is in a tailspin.”

“Sorry to complicate things.”

“Your grin says you’re not sorry at all,” she challenged, with a frustrated sigh. She shook her head as she turned away, and either from the cold or from the way he was looking at her, her cheeks blemished red. “You don’t make things easy, Steve.”

Bucky had told him to talk to Peggy. Maybe this was his chance.

“Do you want me to offer another disingenuous apology?” he said. She stood shivering in the cold, staring up at him with her pupils dilated. He took off his jacket and draped it across her shoulders, tugging the ends closed to trap in some of the heat. He also used it to keep her near him. “Or should I just lay my cards on the table? Because you and I both know where I stand on this, Peggy. I want you _back_. I want you with me. I’m not saying you can never take the cure. Hell, there’s nothing stopping both of us from taking the cure one day in the future. But right now, right here – I just got you back in my life, Peggy. What’s the _fucking_ rush?” the last part, he spat out, a little desperate, almost a sickly laugh. “Just waste another lifetime with me. Another two, another three. Whatever you can give, I’ll take it. I’ll always take it.”

She had always been worth more than everything else in his life.

He pulled her in and wrapped his arms around her before he could think better of it. There was a long second where she was stiff as a board against him, where he thought he’d overplayed his hand and pushed her into a frenzied retreat, that she would rip herself away. But then she took a choked breath, bunching her hands into fists around his shirt and burying her face in his chest.

"Bloody hell, Steve," she spat out weakly, while he ran his palm up and down the familiar curves of her body.

"I've got your back, Peggy," he said, the words muffled against her hair, puffs of breath visible in the frigid air. "And you've got mine, remember? Right from the start, it's been you. We’re in this together.”

She didn’t respond, but for the longest time, she let him hold her.

“All right,” she said, taking a deep breath. She looked up at him, smiling through her tears. “All right.”

“All right, what?” he encouraged.

“I won’t take the cure, Steve.” 

#


	11. Chapter 11

#

_“I won’t take the cure, Steve.”_

As soon as Peggy said the words, a part of him already knew they couldn't achieve any clarity in that moment, not the type they probably needed, not with everything so charged between them. But the words were a promise that he wanted so desperately to believe.

He tucked a piece of windblown hair behind her ear. "Peggy," he breathed, trying to _think_ before he acted.

But then she lifted her hand, touching his face, and he pressed his cheek into her palm and inhaled sharply. When he opened his eyes, she was smiling at him. Steve tried to picture it. He did. He tried to imagine having her back at his side again, walking into battles and standing beside him day-by-day; he’d loved her so much this whole time that he'd never felt like he had the words for it, and now it was there again, just standing before him. When Peggy lifted up on her tiptoes and kissed him, Steve stopped thinking entirely and kissed her back, immediately crowding her up against the wall, pinning her with his hips. His hands couldn’t seem to decide where they wanted to land, touching her everywhere, eventually settling down at her hips. And Peggy didn’t hesitate to match his hunger when she slipped her hands into his hair and licked into his mouth ruthlessly. He made a helpless, greedy noise, and pressed her harder against the wall. He didn’t know how long they went on like that, but long enough that when he pulled back, he had to breathe heavily against her collarbone. 

He braced his hands on the brick wall on either side of her, bracketing her in. “I need,” Steve said, trying to restrain himself with a breath. He closed his eyes. “I need you to _be sure_ , Peg.” 

She ran a thumb across his lower lip. “I’m sure, Steve.” 

He opened his eyes and took her thumb into his mouth, rolling his lips around it. She groaned, and that started them up again, kissing headily until his hands ventured under the skirt of her dress, until he felt the silk and lace of her panties. 

_“Steve,”_ she warned, pulling back from the kiss, but it was said in that breathless voice that really meant he _shouldn’t_ stop. 

“Just keep your voice down, Peg,” he encouraged her.

By this time he’d already shifted the underwear down her thighs, and he tapped her backside, encouraging her to lift her legs one at a time so he could pull them off. She obliged with her breath held in, staring at him with that familiar look of heat and lust in them. 

The next few moments were a hot mess, an intense haze of lust and déjà vu as he got his fingers underneath her dress again. He expected to feel the crinkle of her hairs, but he just felt smooth skin instead. He stroked with two fingers, pushing into her as her mouth fell open, a small dainty sound escaping her. Steve used his thumb to slick wetness over her, rubbing at first gently against her clit, then more and more urgently as she grew desperate. It was like riding a bike, to do this to her, an evocative exploit that was no more calmer in its urgency for all the times he’d done it. 

When she started coming, she pressed into his hand, pushing counterpoint to his finger thrusts, building on his rhythm; her hands clutched possessively at his shirt before she let out a small high-pitched breath. His fingers weren’t gentle, pushing her through a shaking climax, his own eyes clenched so tight with want, from being caught on edge for so long. She slumped against him, and he pressed a kiss against her hairline, stroking her hair with his free hand as she came down.

He reached down to grab her fallen panties, tucking them into his pocket with one hand. He looked up at Peggy, locking eyes with her, and licked his sticky forefinger clean. She tasted _exactly_ how he remembered. Peggy was still recovering, practically boneless, melted against the wall like butter, but the sight of his actions made her curse under her breath. 

His mouth found hers again, hot and eager, and was still on hers when they heard someone clearing their throat behind them.

“You realize the club has security guards patrolling, yeah? Just to prevent this sort of thing.”

Steve ripped his mouth away, turning to find Valkyrie standing behind them, eyebrow lifted. He stepped back when Peggy forced him off her with a quiet shove.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Valkyrie said, not sounding sorry at all. She was smirking. “But I wanted to tell you your little ward has gone up to bed. Knackered, I think. One would think international jetlag would do that to a person, but you seem to be fully up, Rogers.”

Steve didn’t respond. He found that teasing worsened if he tried to add anything to the commentary. Besides, they still had all their clothes on, minus Peggy’s panties. He didn’t know how much Valkyrie had witnessed, and quite frankly he couldn’t bring himself to care. He knew there was a little more color in his face, and Peggy had always handled these sorts of situations better than him. They weren’t exhibitionists, either one of them, but after so many centuries together, neither of them were acutely shy nor particularly unfamiliar to the act of being caught _in flagrante delicto_. It was a running joke with the Winter Soldiers, but god, it had been _so long._

Peggy, for her part, just stared back at Valkyrie, cool and collected, as if they hadn’t just been caught with his fingers inside her. “Is there something that you needed?”

“Aside from preventing the club from being cited in another Public Indecency charge?”

“Is there anything…” Peggy said, taking a deep calming breath, with far more irritation evident than she would normally allow; Steve shouldn’t have been so pleased with himself over that. “Why are you here, Valkyrie?”

“To return something,” Valkyrie said. She tossed Peggy her purse, a small clutch that Peggy had brought along to the club but had abandoned in the VIP section when they’d gone out onto the dancefloor. “I’ll take care of the little one. Why don’t you two go somewhere else to finish this,” she smiled, “off.”

Okay, so Steve could turn a sharper shade of red, albeit he refused to give Valkyrie the satisfaction of seeing that. He turned away, collecting his jacket off the ground where it had fallen off Peggy's shoulders earlier. He didn’t think Valkyrie was the type to judge, but he didn’t want an audience either. 

Valkyrie turned on her heels to leave, but not before parting one final shot. “And don’t forget to use protection!”

He groaned in annoyance. "We got one tiny problem," he said.

"Tiny?" Peggy replied dubiously, a brief spark of arousal lighting her eyes like flint against tinder.

He didn’t appreciate the cheeky response as much as the look. “We need privacy. _Now_.” 

Peggy nodded in agreement, then produced a set of keys, one for Thor’s flat and the other for her car. She lifted an eyebrow as she stared at him, clearly leaving the choice to him on where they should go next. He knew they could go upstairs to the second floor for the most convenient place, the _closest_ possible place, and lock themselves in a bedroom until starvation or exhaustion ran them out. But he was a long-term strategist, _a man with a plan_ , they’d called him. If they stayed at Thor’s place, they’d have company – and he preferred not to traumatize Wanda with whatever she’d overhear; Peggy tended to get loud.

He grabbed Peggy’s keys, and ushered her down the cobblestone alleyway with a hand modestly at her back, especially given where it’d been just moments ago. “How far away is your hotel?”

The only reason he hadn’t bothered getting a room there was because he’d wanted to avoid being on Tony’s radar. That cat was out of the bag.

“Twenty-five-minute drive,” Peggy announced.

He winced. It wasn’t ideal, but he could hold himself off. He’d been patient for decades. What was another half hour? But when they finally reached the car, instead of unlocking the doors, Steve found himself pressing Peggy back against the metal, nuzzling her neck with his lips and his three-o-clock stubble.

“You have to push the button,” she told him. 

“I know how to unlock a car, Peg.”

“Oh, is that what you thought I was talking about?” 

He growled darkly against the laughter in her throat – and he’d nearly forgotten how rich her voice could sound when she was like this, emboldened, sexy as hell, and just a little bit breathless with want. He’d already gotten her off, but already he could tell she was just as desperate as him again. When he sucked at the place where her pulse beat, her eyes fluttered closed and her breath came out panting, cursing his name.

“Quiet,” he chided. He really didn’t want to get caught again.

“Don’t get full of yourself,” Peggy warned back, and he decided to repay the comment with a hand sliding up her chest, resting heavily against her curves. “We should...” she said, breaking off when his thumb brushed against and circled her nipple, even through the material of her clothes. “Steve—”

He nipped at her neck. Then managed to display a herculean amount of restraint by pushing himself away and marching to the driver’s side, where he unlocked the car doors and they both got in. Peggy didn’t seem to mind that he was driving her car – and Christ, it was small. He had to fold himself into the seat, adjusting both the chair and the steering wheel with grunts of annoyance. 

He turned to find Peggy suppressing a sigh, but also looking amused. “It’s not a race, Steve. You must realize I’m a sure thing tonight. And tomorrow, and the night after that, and so on and so forth. I meant what I said, darling. I’m not going anywhere.”

He did know that, and he _didn’t_. He knew from the way she had kissed him back that she wanted this as much as he did. He also knew that if she’d given him her word on not taking the cure, she was certain in her stance. But he also didn’t trust in the luck of lust and love winning out over everything else. For so long, his luck had been abysmal, running on nearly a century now. He wasn’t going to let Peggy out of his sight, or out of his reach, until he had ample time to refamiliarize himself with her curves all over again. Until he’d had plenty of times to encourage and reaffirm her decision to stay with him.

He put the car into reverse and drove it like a getaway vehicle. 

His gaze kept dropping to her legs. He could see a patch of her thigh exposed through the slit in her dress, and it’d been driving him senseless all night long, made worse now by the fact that he knew her underwear was bunched up in his pocket. The thought was distracting. So distracting, of course, that Peggy noticed. She reached for his hand and placed it on her thigh, as she had done earlier in the night for the benefit of selling a cover to Tony – but this time it wasn’t a cover, and Steve didn’t hesitate to let his hand journey a little, his still-tacky fingers settling possessively in the crease between her legs. He just kept it there, feeling the warmth radiating off her body, exchanging a sidelong glance with her.

"Steve," she whispered, almost breathless, her body tight and ready against his hand.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Steve swore. “I will. I promise, sweetheart. But if I start again, I won’t stop, and this fucking car isn’t big enough for what I want to do to you.”

He pressed harder on the accelerator, but didn’t move his hand, still resting in the cradle of her thighs. It was a miracle they didn’t get into a car accident.

By the time they’d reached the hotel, the valet barely had time to collect the keys before Steve was marching Peggy forward and into the lobby. He settled for the warmth of her skin, so close to his, and found himself grateful for the cover of night and a little annoyed at the hotel lobby’s fluorescent lighting. 

When they got into the elevator, an elderly couple joined them, and Peggy punched the floor for her room while Steve had to stand discreetly at her side. The long seconds in the elevator were made even more ridiculous by the music. It was a little surreal to be feeling like an impatient teenager, because he _knew_ what it was like to be with Peggy, he knew it in his bones because he’d explored her in every imaginable way over the years; there was hundreds of ways to wring pleasure out of her. But at the same time, there was a feeling of _newness_ to this night, a sense of it being like the first time they were touching each other rather than the millionth. His entire body felt alit with the anticipation, almost lightheaded with desire. When the door finally pinged open, Steve may have uttered a prayer of thanks.

They got to her room and he had her backed up against the door the moment it closed behind them, hands pulling at the jacket and her dress, and then it was shocking, how much he wanted this. How much he _needed_ it. 

Peggy worked quickly to untuck his shirttail that was half hanging out anyway, and then had his belt and zipper undone. When she reached a hand down under his boxers, grabbing hold of him and stroking hard, Steve felt a grunt go through him that he felt went down to his toes. He’d thought about this so many times, feeling Peggy’s hands instead of his own, and he didn’t ever want to go back. He pressed his open mouth to her neck, more suckle than a kiss, all pressure and wetness while she continued to stroke him deftly, exactly the way he liked, the way he wanted. 

Until he felt himself caught on the edge and before he knew it, he was muttering, _“Wait, no – Peg.”_ But she kept stroking even as he tried to warn her, and then he was coming so hard, he stained his shorts like a sixteen-year-old boy.

 _Fuck._ That really wasn’t how he wanted it to go, the first time.

But Peggy looked pleased with herself, like that was exactly what she’d been intending. “You were too amped up,” she told him sweetly, pressing a quick kiss to his lips while he rallied. “Now we can take a little time to enjoy. Don’t worry, we’ll go through as many rounds as you like, darling.” 

_Jesus Christ, yes._

“I’m going to make myself a drink,” she announced, pulling away to wipe her hands on a nearby hand towel. “You?”

He shook his head. 

She went to the minibar in the corner and took out a bottle from something on the second shelf. She always did like a good stiff bourbon, neat. 

Now that he had a moment, the hotel suite looked massive and luxurious, dripping in warm colors and highlighted in red. There was a foyer, an ensuite bath, a fully stocked wet bar and an immaculate sitting room; then, finally, he suspected a separate bedroom area behind a pair of double doors off to the side. There were floor-to-ceiling windows that showcased a beautiful panoramic view of the main riverside at night. 

He knew without asking that Tony had paid for the room, because Peggy would never put herself up in such an expensive place, and the idea left a bad aftertaste in Steve’s mouth for reasons he didn’t even want to think about.

While she fixed herself a drink, Steve pulled his white collared shirt and undershirt above his head, stripping it off in one motion. He still wore his trousers and stained boxers, uncomfortably, but he didn’t want to restart the fun of fully undressing until Peggy finished her drink. He walked across the darkened room to stand near the windows, staring out at the majestic view of the river and city skyline. It was a striking sight, and Steve wanted to etch the horizon into his memory, another thing to remember about tonight. He would sketch this from memory one day. He wanted to remember everything about this night.

He was so absorbed in the view that he was caught entirely unaware when a flash of a camera burst behind him. He spun back around in surprise to find Peggy with her cell phone out, aimed at him.

“Did you just take a half-naked picture of me?” he asked, incredulous.

“Yes,” Peggy said shamelessly, and took another photo. The light flashed in his eyes and Steve raised a hand in embarrassment, laughing, trying to prevent his face from being caught on camera. “What can I say, darling? You and the silhouette of the city behind you? Too hard to resist.”

He couldn’t imagine what he looked like, shirtless, his trousers undone and hanging open over his hips, but he agreed the view behind him was nice. It was only fair, he supposed. He’d had centuries of meticulous drawings sketched out of her, plenty of them in various stages of undress, and plenty in nudes. He was pretty sure there was a museum in Italy that had a 1468 sketching of his, of Peggy swimming in a pond in her birthday suit. He couldn’t blame her for taking advantage of the new medium, a little leveling of the playing field – especially since he’d always refused to draw himself naked for her, too embarrassed. Turnabout, he conceded, was fair play.

Still, he felt the need to point out, “You realize you can look at me anytime you want now?” 

Peggy hummed in agreement, setting her phone down and gulping half her drink, looking rather ravenous in her stare. She helped herself to a bottle of expensive mineral water and walked around the wet bar to join him, handing him the bottle. Steve twisted the cap off and took an eager drink, glad to be hydrating himself. Peggy’s hand settled on his chest, moving lightly with a fingernail trailing over his chest and stomach. The sensation caused him to shiver.

“ _Good lord,_ your abs,” she whispered to him, a little giddily. “You were always ridiculously in shape, but this is… this is something on a whole new level, Steve.”

He’d noticed her noticing that on several occasions. “Yeah, well, I’ve had a lot of time and frustration on my hands lately. Thought I’d find an outlet.”

She hummed again, this time in such open appreciation that it made Steve color a little, despite himself. She pressed a quick kiss to his lips and stepped away. Her elaborate chignon had taken quite a few hits during the night, and there were wasps of hair hanging loose around her face; Peggy pulled free at some pins, and Steve watched, rapt, as spools of hair came undone to fall across her shoulders. _Jesus, she was a vision._ So effortlessly sexy and beautiful, and it hadn’t felt fair, all this time, not when he couldn’t have her.

She gestured towards the loveseat in the center of the sitting room. “Sit,” she told him.

He raised an eyebrow, but followed her command, settling down on the sofa with his legs splayed out, knees apart, getting himself comfortable. He rested his arms against the back cushions and stared up at her, waiting, confident. Peggy didn’t smile as she walked over to him, but her eyes were pleased as she smoothly placed her foot just on the inside of his right thigh, resting against the sofa, the sharp point of her black heel pumps pressing against him.

“I need some help,” she told him, “taking these off.”

Steve slowly put his hand on her leg, sliding it up the smooth curved calf and almost to her thigh, before he reversed course and ventured back down again. He slipped off her shoes, and then did the same with her other foot when she presented it. 

The skirt of her dress was bunched up indecently high, and he swore under his breath, hating the low lighting in the room. He’d suspected it before when he had his hands on her, but he wanted to know if she’d groomed herself down there. It wasn’t that he had a preference for the Brazilian styles, but it was something new, something thrilling, and something she would have done only if she’d anticipated them closing out the night together like this. 

The thought got his blood going again.

Peggy finished her drink, set the empty glass on the nearby table, and stood before him in bare feet. She anchored one hand on his shoulder as she began to take off her dress, freeing the zipper down the side seam, staring at him intently the entire time. The dress flooded open, and she stepped out of it, letting it fall to the floor, clad only in a black lacy bra that did architectural wonders for her. 

He’d been right, of course. She had groomed herself for him. He touched her thigh, just off to the center, and looked up at her. “Should I be insulted at being a foregone conclusion?” he teased in a low voice.

She smiled at him. “Was I expecting this?” she said, “No. But I was hoping.”

It amazed him that she could have _hoped_ for this, when she could have had it at any time. All she had to do was open her mouth and tell him, and he’d follow her anywhere.

She reached back, about to undo the clasp, but he stopped her that time. He leaned forward, working at a deliberate pace, his breath warm against her stomach while he reached back, unfastening her bra. She let him draw it slowly down her arms and arched into him when he cupped her breasts in his hands. His thumbs brushed across her nipples, and she stumbled over him a little, like she lost her balance for a second. Steve’s hands found her waist, trying to keep her steady or himself moored, maybe both, and he was distinctly aware of her smell, sweet and tangy, the same scent still prevalent on his fingers. She sank her hands into his hair, running her fingers luxuriously through it, making his eyes slam shut. 

Then it was a rush again, a frenzied clash of mouths and bodies. He tugged her down against him and kissed her hard enough that their teeth knocked together before he could get a hold of himself, easing into a slower kiss. She straddled his waist, opening her mouth up to his tongue and letting him drag it over the roof of her mouth. She moaned his name against him, and Steve readjusted them slowly, flipping their bodies so that she sat under him, trapped underneath his frame across the sofa. He laid her out, mouthing his way down her body, pressing kisses over her skin. He took his time. 

Steve leaned in with a groan, eyes fluttering shut as he nosed at the soft skin at her thigh, first brushing his mouth gently across at the apex, making her muscles jump. Then he shifted, getting more comfortable, parting her legs with his hands at her knees. He could have teased, but he was already worked up himself, so he grabbed a leg, settling it over his shoulder so he had better access. 

He looked up at her for a moment, catching a heated look, and grinned.

Then he took an enthusiastic lick, a strong stripe right across her center. Peggy gasped, jolting against him. He needed a strong hold to keep her hips in place, hands bunched up under her ass and around her hips. Peggy continued to groan loudly, the sounds coming interspersed between the slick wet noises his mouth made against her. Her breath was coming hard and fast, thighs involuntarily closing in around his face, her body a building tremble. 

She was already close, already set on the close edge of an orgasm, so it didn’t take much time at all before she was begging, whispering, _“Please—I need—”_

She couldn’t seem to find the words, but he knew what she wanted, flicking his tongue out, licking once, twice, and then sucking hard with his tongue flat against her clit, a lovers’ Morse code that sent her careening right over the edge. Her body curved up, her hand tightening on one of her breasts, her toes curling, and then she collapsed back down, breathing heavily.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Steve groaned, and sat back on his heels, wiping his chin.

He was already stripping off all his remaining clothes while she came down. Belatedly he remembered the condom in his wallet, and he had to dive back for his pants to pull it out.

By then, Peggy had recovered, and began pressing distracting kisses to his jaw and down his neck; he sucked in a breath when he felt her start to suck a soft bruise into his skin. 

“Hold that thought, Peg,” he murmured. “But I just—I gotta find the—” He found the condom, blessedly, _finally_. She was still spreading kisses along his neck, along his jawline, biting on his earlobe, while he tore at the thing. “You want this on or not?” he asked, chuckling, too distracted by half; he thought he saw her eyes roll just before the condom finally came on, and then he was pressing her back into the couch, laying heavily over her. 

When he pushed his length against her, she shifted back, and he took hold of her waist and pushed in, to the hilt. "God, you feel _so good_ ," he murmured into her ear. He began to rock his hips, forward and back, grinding shallowly against her. He went on, muttering half whispered words into her ear, not quite in possession of his full faculties to really think out what he was saying. She just felt _so good_ , so fucking familiar, being so fucking perfect for him spread out like that. 

She took one of his hands and lifted it to her breast, leaning into his palm while he thrust into her; he squeezed tightly, rolling the nipple between his forefinger and thumb, pinching in the way she liked. Peggy clenched up again and gasped.

It was so hot, so familiar, so entirely, incandescently brilliant that Steve couldn’t think straight. He shifted her hips for a better angle, hitting a better spot, and he felt like he was chasing something and couldn’t slow down. Steve held tight to the back of the couch with one hand and proceeded to fuck the living daylights out of her, driving her back into the cushions. After a while, though, he realized that couldn’t have been a great position for her, so he pulled her up. Arms found purchase around his neck, while legs went around his lean waist, locking at the ankles around him.

Without separating, he lifted her up and marched to the bedroom, making a brief pause in the journey to push a few heavy thrusts into her against the double doors. 

Then he let himself into the bedroom, and Peggy squeaked a little for show when he dropped her heavily onto the four-poster bed. He yanked her body to the edge of the mattress with one hard tug, positioning him back at her entrance. 

“I've wanted you so much,” he told her, rubbing at her again with his thumb, pressing harder, and she gasped, the weeks of foreplay, the years of loneliness, of getting off thinking about her, of not being allowed to get what he really wanted. It swelled up inside him as he leaned down, whispering, “ _Peggy._ ”

Peggy pulled him on top of her, immediately rolling them over, using the momentum of her body to gain the upper hand. Steve grunted, dazed, as she got herself comfortable on top of him. Then she was pulling him back into her body, finding a rhythm, and his fingers strained against the bedspread to keep himself from coming again right then and there.

He took a steadying breath, and closed his eyes. His palms blazed a pathway up her calves, her thighs, as she rode him. Steve met her in the middle, thrusting steadily up, hands firmly gripping her thigh to urge her hips in a quick rhythm, adding a little friction to the movement.

Her tempo grew erratic when she reached between them for her clit, but he batted her hands away, shaking his head. “I got it," he insisted, a little possessively, splaying a hand over her abdomen, his thumb rubbing at her in union to their thrusts. She moaned, head flung back, which only gave Steve a better view of the sweaty column of her neck, the perspiration working down the curves of her breasts, a trim waist, her rolling hips; he lost himself in the tangle of shadows between them as she levered up and lowered back down. He kissed and nipped at her throat, his mouth working just as hard as his hips. She never stood a chance.

Peggy came sharply and doubled over him on the mattress, while Steve was still hard as a rock buried inside her. He liked to think he’d done a commendable job waiting for her to skate into the afterglow, stroking her sides in slow encouragement as she came down. She swept her messy hair out of her face and gave him a soft look.

“You haven’t—?” she began, with a growing frown.

He shook his head, and pushed with his hips once, trying to nudge her into a rhythm again, but she had another idea. She climbed off of him, and he knew he made a dismayed-sounding noise, and probably looked equally as devastated, if not a little betrayed by her actions. She shot him a quelling look over her shoulder. 

She flipped over, presenting him with a nice view of her ass, then slid down on the mattress beside him, her back to his front. His arms wound around her, settling at the nexus of her thighs as she repositioned herself. He pushed into her from behind, slowly at first, bodies pressed skin-to-skin, and then his thrusts grew bolder and deeper as the rhythm set itself again.

It didn’t take long this time. This was what he’d waited for, longed for – and it was so close, it was maddening. Even as he prepared himself for the onslaught that he knew was coming, when he finally reached his fevered pitch, Steve felt like a boneless blissed-out mess afterwards, collapsing back onto the mattress, splayed out like a jelly fish.

“God, I have _missed_ you,” Peggy breathed out, panting.

Steve grunted, catching his breath. He rolled away to dispose of the condom, earnestly hoping Peggy had a box somewhere nearby because he’d only had the one in his wallet. It had been ages since he felt like this, with any kind of content feeling behind it, and the heat that sat between them and their sticky sheets was comforting in its awareness. He was still, looking at her with probably too much written on his face, too open, too aware of the history between them. 

But then the phone near the bedstand rang, and Steve frowned, glancing at the clock, noting the late hour. He reached across the nightstand and answered it. “Hello?” 

“It seems we share a wall,” Tony Stark told him, exasperated. “For the love of god, keep it down.” And hung up.

Steve stared at the phone, then chuckled to himself as he placed the phone back in its cradle.

“What was that?” Peggy asked him.

“Nothing, just figured out how to annoy Tony Stark, is all.”

The bed was big enough to have a half a dozen pillows on it. He shoved them off in annoyance, trying to get into a more comfortable position. He didn’t think he would ever be used to this, the excess of luxury, but with Peggy, sweaty and cooling and there, it was nice. 

She arranged herself against him, and Steve threw a hand over her waist. He tucked Peggy alongside him, tracing fingers up her exposed back, faint and caressing. She met his gaze, hand brushing against the stubble forming on his jawline, and smiled softly. “I love you, Steve,” she told him.

If he ever got bored of hearing those words, he would know that his immortality had lasted too long. 

The minutes passed by, and apparently his body, blissfully satiated and simultaneously protesting the exertion, refused to stay awake much longer.

“You’re not falling asleep on me already, are you, soldier?”

He hummed a little, “Five minutes.”

He drifted into oblivion, and there was a long blissful period where dreams abandoned him. He awoke sometime later, groggily, muscles sore, and feeling thirsty, only to find Peggy standing nude in the middle of the room, snapping the clip of her berretta back into place and checking the safety.

“What is it?”

“Get dressed,” she told him. “We have trouble.”

#


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Peggy's outfit in this chapter is totally inspired by [this](https://geekynerddemon.tumblr.com/post/631810195303120897/i-procrastinated-a-drawing-by-making-another) artwork by geekynerddemon. ;)

#

One of them had been sloppy, Peggy realized, an unforgivable offense if Shield had found them. 

Steve quickly used the facilities and came back, still naked as the day he was born. If they had managed to do their jobs right, Peggy could have afforded to lose herself in this heady rekindled romance all over again. Instead, she was forced to watch as he dressed in the darkness, pulling on his white shirt and trousers, compulsorily required to go commando given the state of his boxers. While he did so, Peggy informed him about Clint’s call, giving them a heads-up that Coulson and his team had located her in Germany and were on-route to the hotel. Clint had no idea how close they were (Coulson was playing this close to the chest), but he seemed to be under the impression that an attempt to recapture Peggy was imminent. 

By now Peggy had quickly dawned on her own clothes, dressing for movement rather than flattery as she had done the prior night specifically for Steve’s benefit. Dark slacks, a red belt, a chiffon white dress shirt that she left open at the collar with the top two buttons undone (some flattery was not unwarranted). She secured her holster and gun across her chest, covering it up with a dark blue blazer. Unfortunately, she only had high heel pumps, which wasn’t ideal if things needed to get physical, but Peggy had long ago learned to handle fighting in anything from stilettos to ballet slippers. 

Before she could reach for the rest of her belongings, Steve pulled her tight to his chest, kissing her once rather breathless, a type of embrace that pledged all sorts of promises that they had no time to fulfill. 

“Your clothes look better on the floor,” he told her, when he pulled back.

Peggy made a face. “Your lines still need work, Steve. You’re a terrible flirt.”

“I wasn’t hearing any complaints last night,” he managed, insufferably pleased with himself.

She shoved him off her with a push. “Go grab my go-bag. It’s in the closet.”

He did as he was told, rummaging through the closet where Peggy had deposited one of their standard go-bags, necessary supplies prepped for a quick exit: weapons, cash, ID cards, a few standard pieces of jewelry that could be pawned for further currency. He swung the bag over his shoulder just as they heard footsteps down the hall. Quiet, mostly unobtrusive, but too many for this early in the morning. 

Steve frowned. “Buy me a few seconds,” he told her, already moving towards the bed.

A game plan was formulated without discussion and they worked together, quietly, even in their separate tasks. While he stripped the sheets and started creating a makeshift rope, Peggy reached for the go-bag and pulled out the single flash grenade. Everything else was live ammunition, and she preferred not to use potentially fatal force against Shield agents, if at all avoidable. By this time, Steve was pushing open the balcony doors, and looked across the ledge to the terrace next door. Peggy already knew the escape plan: they were on the top floor, too far up to try repelling down, and a fall, although survivable in their conditions, was not ideal for a number of reasons not the least of which was unwanted attention. The only real option was a sideways escape, through the adjacent terrace that rested more than a few yards away. Tony Stark’s terrace, if she wasn’t mistaken. 

Steve exchanged a nod with Peggy, telling her it was manageable. Peggy drew the front door barely ajar, peeking out quickly into the hallway to spy a long string of Shield Strike agents lining up in the corridor, two-by-two formation. Peggy quickly pulled the pin and tossed the grenade. When she drew back, covering her ears, she could still hear the distant sounds of the flash grenade going off and ensuring commotion. 

Peggy quickly made her way over to Steve. “A tactical team. Eight members, at least.”

He nodded. She could hear their clattering steps on the other side of the door, and Peggy barely paused to kick off her heels and carry them in her hands. She couldn’t land properly in the heels, and she didn’t want to get herself—or Steve—tripped up because of some such nonsense like her ankle twisting at an inopportune moment. 

She latched herself onto Steve’s sturdier frame, rather enjoying the way he secured her firmly against him with an arm around her waist. While the Strike party regrouped in the hallway, they were already swinging the makeshift rope to propel them clear into the adjacent terrace of Tony Stark’s penthouse suite. The man himself was already up thanks to the loud bang, staring confused, vaguely alarmed, and entirely bed-rumpled at the world around him. His sight landed on the pair on his balcony. 

He got up, opened the glass door wearily, and Steve bypassed him into the suite and through the living room, already running a sweep. 

“Shield is here,” Peggy informed Tony, swiping his car keys off the bedside table. “Warn Erskine. Tell him to meet us at Thor’s. I’m borrowing your car.”

Tony grimaced. “Don’t scratch the paint.”

“I’ve seen the way you drive, Tony. You won’t notice any additional dings.”

“They’re still regrouping in the hallway,” Steve announced, to the foyer by now, listening to the commotion of the Shield team on the other side of the door. From this vantage point, she knew they would emerge behind the raiding party. “Tripoli?” Steve suggested, while Peggy slipped on her shoes. “’82?”

Peggy nodded, while he moved to the fully stocked wet bar, pulling free several bottles of alcohol. 

“Getting ready for a party?” Tony asked, irreverently.

Despite the comment, Peggy had the strong suspicion Tony knew what they were doing. He looked curious, and oddly enough not the least bit alarmed, as Steve and Peggy quickly assembled the basic ingredients together. Peggy grabbed a lighter and a hand towel off the countertop to serve as the wick. Steve held the bottle, Peggy lit the rag, and they moved towards the corridor in a pair; Steve opened the door as Peggy launched the Molotov Cocktails towards the disoriented assault team. A second after the eruption of fire, the sprinkler system went off overhead, dousing the room in water. The fire alarm started blaring. 

“Tell them we threatened you,” Peggy suggested to Tony as they exited the room.

Peggy and Steve used the chaos to slip into the opposite end of the corridor, rushing to the exit marking the staircase, only having to disarm one or two agents before making it clear. Tony stayed back in his hotel room, and Peggy swore she heard the distant sound of his laughter. In the staircase, they tried every door on every floor, only to find them locked from this side of the door. Somewhere above, on the top floor they had just escaped from, the Strike team emerged, closing in fast down the spiraling staircase. 

“Peggy!” Steve shouted, just as the second team sprang their assault. 

It was a measure of anticipation and recoil, the way she worked in tandem with Steve to attack. Peggy used the men’s advancing momentum to throw them down the stairs, pitching a pair over the railing to the landing below. Steve, on the other hand, rammed his shoulders and body into men, tearing them apart like they were tissue paper. Peggy didn’t have the time to appreciate his vigor or form, but it was a refreshing thing, to be able to fight alongside him again, this time on exactly the same wavelength and speed. 

Peggy took a hit to the stomach, knocking her off balance, and slammed into the wall behind her. She landed a kidney punch and managed to throw her assailant off, but he came back angry, aiming for her head. Peggy ducked, grappling with the agent, twisting, bringing both of them to the ground while she assaulted him the entire dive down. 

Peggy and Steve dropped the men in droves, fighting them back, hurrying down the stairs, and, if the men rose to attack once more, they never stood up for very long. It was as if their one night together had undone weeks and years of distance, of frustration, of disjointed solidarity, and Peggy felt invigorated in a way she hadn’t felt in decades. The clean thrill of an assault. Soldiers in their element. She had almost forgotten what it was like to have Steve watching her back and fighting alongside her.

“We need to move before Coulson sends in the Cavalry,” Peggy said.

Steve looked incredulously at the dozen fallen men. “This wasn’t the cavalry?”

“No,” Peggy said, thinking of Melinda May.

But then Peggy came to the bottom of the staircase and halted abruptly. 

Daniel Sousa stood at the bottom landing, weapon out, leaning heavily against his cane, as if he had been waiting for her. Peggy’s breath caught in her throat, and she shouldn’t have been surprised, given the last time she’d seen him was when she’d been arrested for the murder of his partner at Shield, Jack Thompson. She shouldn’t have been surprised he was here, but he could have knocked Peggy over with a feather.

“Margaret Carter,” Daniel said, trying his damndest to remain professional. “You're under arrest for treason, espionage, and aiding and abetting a known terrorist organization, The Winter Soldiers.”

Peggy shook her head. “There's more to this, Daniel. More than you can understand. Tony Stark sent Shield files that proves I’m—”

Daniel shook his head, eyes landing briefly on Steve. “From where I'm standing, it's looking pretty cut and dry.”

Peggy studied him acutely, glancing once briefly to the side to see Steve halted at the edge of the staircase, waiting for her to make her move. She willed Steve not to attack; she couldn’t stand the idea of her friends being hurt further by her betrayals, so she turned back to Daniel and tried once more to talk him out of doing anything foolish. Daniel always carried a torch for her, even after she had put a harsh break on anything romantic between them. She hated to use that to her advantage now, but as the saying went, _needs must._

“You're not going to shoot me, Daniel.”

She stared at him until he saw the realization land, that he couldn’t do it, that he couldn’t shoot her. His aim faltered, until he lowered his gun. “Peggy, don't run. If you run, I'll know it's true. Running only makes you look guilty.”

Peggy tried to hide the flinch. “I'm sorry, Daniel.”

He let Peggy and Steve escape without another word, and she knew it cost him everything in him to do it.

#

In Tony’s ridiculously expensive sports car, Peggy drove speedily, waiting for it, the inevitable onslaught of questions that Steve would have regarding Daniel. She knew Steve had picked up on the name, as he’d homed in on it keenly ever since Thor had referenced Daniel in passing as her ex. _Better suited for you than the last guy_. She cursed herself for ever showing Thor that picture of Daniel.

Peggy’s romance with Daniel had hardly been anything grand or lasting; they’d dated for a short while before she’d realized she was using him to fight off crippling loneliness and little more. He was nice, and he was sweet, and he was good. He was not, however, Steve Rogers. A fault that was more hers than his, and she’d ended it before she thought it’d gone too far, but Daniel had acted the wounded lover for months afterwards, refusing to move on. 

And now, like so many things in her life recently, her past was coming back to haunt her. Somewhere along the way, her life had turned into an absolute disaster, and with the one exception of Steve, it was all headed in the wrong direction. What did it say about her that she kept keeping secrets from the people closest to her? Nothing good, certainly. Peggy knew that she was a fortified person, a person who appreciated walls and boundaries, but there was a difference between secrets and lies, and sometimes there wasn’t a difference at all. Somewhere along the way she’d forgotten that. Now, as the saying went, everything was coming to a head.

Perhaps it was because she felt and probably looked prickly about the subject, so exposed like a raw nerve. Perhaps it was because Steve didn’t want to know the answer himself, not yet. Whatever the reason, Steve never raised the question she braced herself for. Instead, reaching over to her, grasping her hand in his, he sat quietly in the car as they drove. If she had not been driving, she might’ve launched herself at him with gratitude.

In any case, the silence did not last. The phone in Tony’s car rang. Peggy picked it up, more for refuge from the tension than anything else. 

Tony was on the other end. “Ditch the car,” he told her. “Shield will be looking for it and it’s not exactly inconspicuous.”

“I know that,” Peggy snapped, tartly. “It was a quick getaway, but we’ll ditch it soon enough.”

“Good,” Tony said. “Then tell your immortal lover it's only polite to fill up the gas tank when you’re done with it.”

Peggy clenched her jaw. “Steve is not like me, he’s not immortal—”

“Save it,” Tony said, laughing. “ _Tripoli, ‘82?”_ he repeated Steve’s earlier words, and Peggy flinched, realizing the implications. “I’m presuming the last time you two tossed a Molotov Cocktail together was not when he was an infant.”

Actually, the words were referencing 1882, not 1982, but pointing that out would hardly dissuade Tony from his accusation. She thought about a handful of other lies, but then Tony was continuing. 

“Same goes for the rest of your Winter Soldier friends,” Tony said, derisively, sounding insulted. “I know that Bonnie and Clyde are hanging out in their Carmel villa, which they’ve owned since the 70s, _Jesus,_ they’re not even subtle. And the fighter pilot guy is in Fort Bragg now, no need to try to hide it from me. I know, Peg. I’ve always figured, but now it’s harder to play dumb. Never been a strong suit for me.”

At least he didn’t know about Wanda. Yet. 

She exchanged a look with Steve, who could hear everything, a heavy frown etched on his face. Steve trusted Tony as far as he could be thrown, but oddly enough Peggy found she didn’t share the reservations. Tony had had a thousand and one opportunities to betray them; by his own admission, he knew exactly where Sam, Bucky, and Natasha were hiding. He could have tried to capture or turn in any of them, at any point. He hadn’t.

“Are you going to get into trouble?” she asked Tony.

Tony snorted. “Anything less than murder charges, they’re not going to touch me. I’ve got too many defense contracts with the government. I’ve already got my lawyers on it.”

Peggy pressed her lips into a thin line, and then asked the question she’d hadn’t dared before, because she hadn’t wanted to acknowledge it. “Why are you helping us?” 

“Christ, you’re cynical. Not everyone is out to get you,” Tony told her, sounding tired. “Look, you were a close friend of the old man. From what I gather, you may have been his _closest_ friend, aside from his butler – who I just now realize you probably also knew.”

Peggy didn’t bother denying it. “Edwin Jarvis was a good man. Surprisingly handy to have as assistance in espionage work, too. A man of many unexpected talents.”

Tony cursed over the phone, exasperated but sounding unsurprised. “You have no reason to believe me, but that may, _perhaps,_ mean something to me. I’m not… I’m not going to betray a person that was held in such high regard by people that raised me.”

Peggy believed him. 

The real trick would be to get Steve to do the same.

Tony hung up the call abruptly, ending it without a goodbye. A heavy silence fell in the car, which Steve eventually broke with a tentative, “Edwin Jarvis?”

Peggy sighed. “Howard’s butler, and my good friend for some sixty-one years. His wife was a dream, too. Made me my first garter that doubled as a holster.”

So many good friends gone, and the ones she’d kept now looked at her as a traitor. Peggy couldn’t deny it. That stung far more brutally than she had anticipated. Coulson, his team, Daniel – hell, even Fury, to some extent. She had seen these people as friends, not just colleagues. And they all thought the worst of her.

Steve interwove his fingers with hers, squeezing once. He broke the awkward tension with a smile. “Just sad I didn’t get to see you model the garter.”

She looked over at him and managed a genuine smile. “Play your cards right, you might still.” Steve smirk grew a little, as if in victory, the flirtation lilt almost overcast by the self-satisfied shine. “What?” she demanded, to the look.

“And you said my lines needed work,” he said, a little haughtily. “Seems to be working just fine from where I’m sitting.”

Peggy rolled her eyes. “What am I going to do with you?”

“I could think of a few things.”

#

They traded cars, circled the city twice, avoiding tolls and street cameras, stopped at a thrift shop and changed clothes, and finally, hours later, when it was deemed safe, returned to Thor’s loft. _The Asgard_ looked different in the daytime, the dancefloor swept clean and free, the lights all dimmed, natural sunlight streaming through the large overhanging windows. Valkyrie was behind the bar restocking inventory, and Peggy waved her forward to join them upstairs. 

By the time they’d made it to Thor’s flat, they found a house full. Thor was there, of course, but so was his girlfriend, Jane Foster, and Erskine as well. Wanda looked like she’d slept in, still in her PJs, but there was fresh coffee around the table and a behemoth stack of pancakes being served for a late brunch. Peggy made introductions for Steve quickly, before getting right to business.

“It’s time to figure out our next move,” Peggy said. “With Shield here, we can’t stay in Germany. They’re after me, but they’ll throw their net wide.”

Erskine sighed. “I had been preparing to go underground ever since Howard died, to be honest. This comes as no surprise to me. But it does present the question before I make my leave. Do I need to prepare any other cures?”

The table sat quietly, until Wanda broke it in shock. “You’ve perfected it? The Immortality Cure?”

Erskine nodded. “Yes, and the only place it’ll remain is with me, as I won’t allow it or the Super Soldier Serum to be weaponized in any fashion. So, it stands some consideration. Are there any takers?” he said this, looking at Peggy briefly, but mainly at Thor, who sat next to his very smart, very beautiful, and very, very mortal girlfriend. “I would need to prepare the serums before I leave Germany.”

The table sat quietly for a very long moment, the choice before them all. 

Wanda, unsurprisingly, shook her head. “I just achieved immortality myself. I don’t think I’ll trade it away this quickly.”

It hadn’t occurred to Peggy that Wanda would, but there were others that were more of a question mark. Thor and Jane seemed locked in some silent battle of wills, staring at each other and communicating quietly but intensely. Then Thor announced, “Prepare one serum,” he announced, magnanimously. “I think I’ll look fetching with gray hair.”

Surprisingly, Jane groaned in displeasure at the declaration. “I’ve told you that you don’t have to. You _shouldn’t_ ,” she announced, a bit upset, removing his hand from where it rested across her shoulder. “I’m not asking you to give up your immortality for me, Thor. I would never—” 

“You’re not asking, Jane. I’m offering.”

Jane stood up, heatedly, scrubbing a hand through her hair, clearly flustered. She didn’t look like she knew what to say, or – as Peggy had learned over the years – was probably so overwhelmed by having _too much_ to say. She was a unique woman that could talk a mile a minute, think faster, and process more than anyone else Peggy had ever met, perhaps barring only Tony Stark and his father. 

“I need to take a walk,” Jane announced, suddenly.

Predictably, Thor chased after her, dislodging the breakfast nook in his haste to catch up to her. Peggy could hear his booming voice clear across the flat, and then down the hall, calling for Jane to wait. 

Valkyrie snorted. “Well, no need to make a cure for me,” she declared, matter-of-factly. “I like my life like I like my women, full of surprises and unending stamina.”

Before anyone could ask her, Peggy decided to get in front of it. “I’ve decided not to take the cure, as well.” 

Wanda looked surprised. Valkyrie looked amused. And Erskine, well, he turned his head towards Steve, making a face of utmost fascination. Peggy thought he was about to make some smart remark, as it was evident to everyone that Steve and Peggy had spent the night together; if Valkyrie hadn’t shared the story of her stumbling upon them in the back alley the prior night well known to everyone, then it had been made entirely obvious by the sudden and emphatic _‘oh, gross’_ that Wanda had proclaimed when she’d first greeted them in the morning. As if Steve and Peggy’s mere facial expressions had confirmed Wanda’s psychic suspicions that they were sleeping together again. 

Erskine said nothing, merely hiding a smile behind a quick sip of coffee, peeking out over the rims of his glasses at Steve. Curiously, as if Steve was a lovely wonder that Erskine wanted to get his hands on – to figure out how he’d undone Peggy Carter’s infamous resolve in one day. Peggy tried not to audibly sigh in exasperation.

Steve, on the other hand, looked a bit pleased, ducking his head and failing spectacularly to hide his gratification at Peggy’s answer. Then it became obvious that the scrutiny he suffered was not only because of Peggy’s answer, but because he hadn’t answered himself either, on if he wanted the cure. 

Steve shook his head immediately. “It was never a desire of mine,” he stated, shrugging, as if his participation in the cure was and would always be a mere afterthought, an academic question that barely required consideration. He had never expressed even the slightest interest in the cure. 

“Well,” Erskine said, softly, “I’ll make extra batches for everyone, for the future, for when… when I won’t be around,” he paused, delicately, and Valkyrie reached across the breakfast table and took a hold of his hand, squeezing once, a wealth of emotions passing between them. Erskine smiled, and turned towards Peggy and Steve. “But you need to reach out to the rest of your family and confirm no one else wants to immediately partake.”

Peggy froze, the cup of coffee halfway to her lips. Natasha and Bucky, Peggy was fairly sure would pass, but _Sam._ Sam was the real question mark, and she saw the same thought land on Steve’s face, the color of his pallor fading with the realization.

“I’ll handle it,” Steve said, very quietly.

Wanda suddenly looked a tad bit more vulnerable, and very, very young. 

After that, the conversation was subdued for a while. Erskine left around noon, and Thor and Jane didn’t seem like they were coming back. Wanda asked what they could do for the day, but the options were rather limited, given they were now being actively pursued by Coulson’s team. The only thing they could do was stay put, which Wanda found a bit ridiculous. Thor’s flat was large enough, at least, for all of them to have their own bedrooms and bathrooms, but it was still just a flat. Peggy could understand the excitement of visiting a new place for the first time, the rush of a new experience. Peggy could hardly remember the first time she’d visited Germany, but it had been ages and ages ago. The Romans might have still been in charge.

Instead of any sightseeing or touristy things, Wanda was forced to watch television and lounge on Thor’s couch. She did it under protest, but quickly settled in for a marathon of old _The X Files_ episodes. Peggy didn’t quite understand the appeal, because everything was dubbed in German, which Wanda didn’t even understand, but apparently she had at some point watched the show so many times that she knew exactly what was happening in each episode anyway. 

Steve and Peggy reached out individually to Sam, Natasha, and Bucky, conveying information and developments. Peggy had hung up with both Bucky and Nat long before Steve got off the phone with Sam. He just shook his head, telling her that Sam hadn’t given an answer either way as to the cure. Sam was still thinking over his options. Bucky and Natasha, as suspected, had both declined.

Peggy tried to find something to do, but there was some obligation to keep their sixteen-year-old ward company. The rest of the afternoon unfolded with tedium. They settled on the opposite couch, watching the news and alternatively binge watching _The X Files_ with Wanda. Peggy felt a bit ridiculous, given everything else going on in her life, but there was literally nothing they could do outside of Thor’s apartment.

Underneath the shared blanket, Steve got a bit handsy with her, but nothing that breached any lines. He hadn’t stopped touching her all day, and Peggy felt the same, this rather desperate desire to keep him close and nearby, constantly laying a hand on his chest or shoulders, constantly reminding herself that she could touch him anytime she wanted now. She hadn't realized how touch starved she'd been before, keeping her hands to herself at all times, always alert, always on guard. It felt like a relief to let down her walls, to find assurances in a simple touch. And Peggy kept catching coveted looks from Steve, both silently acknowledging that watching TV with a teenager wasn’t what either of them had in mind in terms of their favored activities. 

But they had responsibilities, and Peggy would never say it aloud, but she secretly adored the way Steve was with Wanda, affectionate and protective, even paternal. He had always been a good father. She wasn’t remotely ready for kids again. The idea absolutely _terrified_ her. But it was a nice reminder to how gentle and sweet Steve could be. 

Meanwhile, Valkyrie was starting Happy Hour a little early, even for her. She had two beers with lunch, and then steadily progressed to hard liquor. Valkyrie had never been a lightweight, but Peggy started to notice the downward spiral when a bottle of vodka was pulled out of the cabinet. Perhaps the fact that the only family Valkyrie had known for several thousand years were both giving up their immortality was putting a damper on the woman’s afternoon.

She nudged Steve in the leg and nodded her head in Valkyrie’s direction. He nodded back, understanding that she was asking for a little privacy to talk to the other woman. He lifted to his feet, announcing a shower (the implied invitation for Peggy to join him at any time was a little less subtle than Steve probably meant it to be), and left the room. Wanda barely paid attention, drifting off to sleep in either boredom or jetlag, it didn’t really make a difference at this point.

Peggy made her way to the kitchen, where Valkyrie was pulling out a shot glass. It was still bright daylight outside. Peggy opened her mouth to say something, but Valkyrie instead pulled out another shot glass from the cabinet and presented it to Peggy. 

Valkyrie kept her eyebrow raised. “You’re not going to make me drink alone, are you? Like a sad, lonely old woman?”

Peggy weighed her options briefly before taking the offered drink and chugging it back. God help her, that was her first mistake. Peggy wasn’t a lightweight, but Valkyrie’s level of alcohol tolerance was not only on another level, but perhaps a different planet entirely. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” Peggy asked.

“It?”

“Whatever’s bothering you?”

Valkyrie lifted an eyebrow. “Me?” She took a shot of vodka, grimacing as the alcohol went down her throat. “I’m grand.” 

“Look, I understand the notion of keeping things closely guarded—”

“Understatement of the century,” Valkyrie muttered under her breath.

Peggy stopped. “Pardon me?”

Valkyrie tipped her head to the side. “Until a few days ago, we had no idea you had this whole cadre of immortals. I guess I can see why you changed your mind on the cure. That man’s ass could lead anyone astray.”

Peggy looked at Valkyrie, incredulously.

“What?” Valkyrie said. “I’m bi, and very much not blind. Let’s play a game, shall we? Ask a question, and you either answer it or take a shot. My guess is you’ll be drunk well before me.”

Peggy held the defiant stare and picked up the shot glass, refilling it. She had never been one to back down from a challenge, even if she knew better. “What’s your first question?”

Valkyrie grinned. 

#

By the time Steve emerged from the bathroom, freshly showered and changed, the frown she received from him as he inspected her should have been a clear warning. Peggy glanced at the clock, realizing a significantly longer time had passed than she realized, and she was perhaps a bit more inebriated than she had expected. Steve usually took five-minute showers, but at least thirty had passed. She belatedly suspected he might have been waiting for her to join him. 

“Wanna join us?” Valkyrie asked Steve, raising the bottle. 

Steve’s frown intensified. “No, thanks. You two seem to be enjoying yourselves.”

Peggy wouldn’t go that far. She was fairly sure this was one of the few times she would be drunk under the table. Valkyrie had only answered one question. ( _Do you believe Thor will take the cure?_ The answer of which, Valkyrie surprisingly replied – _no, but only because Jane won’t have him do it_.) Despite having taking shots for the rest of the time, Valkyrie looked no more drunk or sober since the game had begun.

Peggy, on the other hand, had used her deflections and shots sparingly, and still felt pleasantly buzzed. 

By the time night had fallen, Peggy was probably more than a little drunk when she stepped away from Valkyrie, refusing to answer the last sex question. Valkyrie had engaged in a number of them. She found Steve had retreated back to the guest bedroom, talking on the phone, by the distant sounds of it, on a serious conversation. The guestroom was a modest size, but it was largely overshadowed by the elaborate hamster cage in the corner, with chutes and wheels and several levels, all of which sat depressingly vacant. Thor’s missing hamster was still a touchy subject with the man. 

“Yeah, I know,” Steve said, sounding frustrated. He was perched on the edge of the large platform bed, feet planted firmly on the ground, and carrying quite a bit of tension in his shoulders as he continued the phone call. “I don’t know about that, but this is Sam’s choice. You have to let him take as long as he’d like in determining— yeah, I know.” 

Peggy came up behind him, settling on the bed. The mattress dipped, and Steve glanced back, mouthing _Bucky_ to her, as if she hadn’t already figured that out. Steve went back immediately to the conversation, and Peggy sat there, lounging, trying to wait until the end of the phone call. But it was a lengthy one, apparently, and Peggy’s patience was draining.

She crawled over to Steve, hands running lightly over his hunched back. She knew he was having a serious conversation with Bucky, an important one, but her alcohol fueled mind refused to process it fully. After a beat, one hand fell over his shoulder, to the center of his chest along the dark blue buttons that lined Steve’s wrinkled shirt. He paused briefly in his conversation, squeezing Peggy’s hand once, a gentle gesture meant to stall her, telling her to wait just a moment. He kept talking to Bucky, which Peggy found a bit unacceptable. 

She pressed herself against him, starting with a kiss just at the nape of his neck. She could feel him tense up immediately. 

Peggy crowded closer to his back, and her hands couldn’t seem to decide where they wanted to explore, up across the planes of his muscular back, over his trim waist, along his hips. He had ridiculously lovely arms, thick and sculpted biceps. _Jesus, his proportions._ His muscles seemed to jump under her exploration, his voice catching at one point in the conversation. 

Finally, his hands caught hers when he turned around to face her, a serious expression on his face as he covered the receiver and mouthed, _how much have you had to drink?_

He meant it to come off reprimanding, but she could tell he was bothered in another fashion. Peggy only smiled back brazenly, and started untucking his shirt from his trousers, daring to go further when he failed to make even an aborted attempt to stop her. She kissed his neck as she finished untucking his shirt, before Steve pulled back with a stifled groan as her hands got under the material and raked hard nails across his chest. 

“Uh, yeah, Buck, I’m going to talk to Sam soon—” he broke off, hitching heavily, when her hand slid down to palm the hilt of his belt buckle. “Look, I’m going to have to call you back at a later— yeah, I know that. I’ll call you back, okay.”

By the time he hung up, Peggy already had his trousers unzipped and undone, hanging open with wide flaps, his boxers underneath a pale blue color. She shoved him back against the bed, dragging her mouth hot and wet against his navel, listening to him groan.

 _“_ Peggy, _Jesus,”_ he breathed.

“Is that a complaint I hear?” she returned, looking up. His jaw was still shadowed by stubble, hanging open with anticipation, and she found her eyes greedily taking in the full length of him, sprawled on his back, thick hair tousled, tension in his body inflexible and stiff. “Because I can stop, of course.”

He was hardening like concrete underneath her, and they both knew he didn’t want her to stop. But she wanted him to acknowledge that.

“Should I?” she teased. “Stop?”

He shook his head.

She wanted to hear him say it, but the gesture would do for the moment. She resumed undressing him, encouraging him to lift his hips so she could separate him from clothing, pulling both the trousers and the boxers down his legs in a long, grappled tug. She wasn’t as coordinated as she normally was, but they got there with Peggy feeling rather breathless already, eager and ready. There was an aching emptiness inside her which Steve needed to fill soon, but that could wait for the moment.

“We should play a game,” she told him, teasingly licking his thigh and biting once, making Steve groan. “Not too dissimilar to the one Valkyrie and I were playing. Truth or – well, not _alcohol_ , but I’m sure we could think of some alternative chastisement.”

“You want to play twenty questions right now?” Steve replied, incredulous, his eyes slightly glazed.

Peggy hummed, sitting between his legs, lips ghosting over his hips, knowing full well that he couldn’t think beyond the terms of _her_ and _her mouth_. 

She licked her lips. “Tell me about your favorite fantasy staring our reunion. The one you kept playing over and over again in your head.”

"Well, you’re playing out a featured part right now," Steve said, thickly. Peggy grinned as she sank to her knees, rewarding his honesty by wedging herself between his legs. Then she looked up at him, amused and quizzical, issuing the silent challenge. The realization dawned on him for what she wanted him to do – to explain it while she had him in her mouth – and he swallowed hard, thickly, trying to get himself under control. "Right, so, there wasn’t exactly a lot of background to it—” he broke off when she wrapped her mouth around him, lips sliding down to fully take him in. “ _God, Peg_ —fuck.”

She hummed, licked him once, twice, fully, then pulled free, chiding him. “You stopped talking, Steve. You're supposed to be telling me your fantasy.”

Steve swallowed again, breathing heavily. “Your mouth,” he panted out, “just like that. Like you’re doing right now.”

“You thought about me going down on you?”

“Yes, _god, yes_.”

“I thought about it, too,” she told him, taking pity on him. He clearly couldn’t work out more than a few words at a time, the pour soul. “I thought about how good you taste, how sweet. I thought about the sounds you make when I do this—” she told him, and took him back into her mouth again, but this time she did not tease, working him full-throated, hands and mouth operating in synchronization, remembering exactly how he liked it, how uncontrollable his hips always got when she found the right pace.

Peggy loved this part, she really did. A lot of people, both men and women, found the act demeaning, but Peggy didn’t understand that, not when she was the one clearly in power. Not when she could break Steve so sweetly with just her mouth and tongue. Steve’s eyes screwed shut, fingers tangled in her hair as his hips bucked slightly against her mouth. When she turned him into this – this flustered and desperate guy, incoherent as he cursed under his breath, she knew Steve was so far gone that he couldn't remember his own name, only _hers_. 

She’d meant what she’d said – this had been a featured part of many of her fantasies, and given the way his fingers tightened in her hair, hips canting unconsciously, quickly _begging_ her for release, she was pleased to find it lived up to every bit of her fantasies and memories. 

She kept relentlessly on him, and when he came, Peggy did not stop sucking and fucking him with her mouth, forcing him through his orgasm with a greedy satisfaction. He collapsed back onto the mattress, breathing heavily, looking spent and satiated.

When he’d finally caught his breath, he looked at her with a type of dazed amazement that morphed into determination. “So, I guess turnabout is fair play?” he said.

Peggy grinned, already reaching for him.

#

Peggy woke up a long while later to find Steve curled up naked against her back, arm warped so tightly across her waist that she could barely move. His face was buried in her hair and she could tell by his warm breath on her neck and ear that he was still dead to the world. His two-day-old beard stubble tickled her where it grazed against her skin, and she wondered if he was growing out his beard again. Visually she’d been a fan of it, although it was rather annoying in terms of _kissing_.

She released a forceful breath, knowing they couldn’t lounge around in bed all day, despite the appeal. She had no idea what time it even was, but she had to use the bathroom. Applying gentle pressure against his ribs with her elbow, she did her best to break free without waking him. After a moment, he grumbled something unintelligible and rolled onto his back. 

Peggy pulled away and sat up, just as his phone pinged with an alert on the bedside table. She reached across to retrieve it, discovering a message waiting from Sam.

It said: _I’m coming to Germany tomorrow. I’ve made my decision. I’m taking the cure._

#


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a brief bit of dialogue that is lifted straight from Captain America comic books #24 - “All Die Young V” (2020).

#

Something was licking Sam Wilson’s face when he woke up. He grunted, swiping at the offending party, but it only made the dog think he was playing around. 

Sam groaned, _“Red!”_

The dog hurdled all over him, landing hard on Sam’s stomach and nosing her head at Sam’s chin. He rubbed the sleep away from his eyes and got up. Red, which was Riley’s pet Pitbull, was a two-year old rescue that still acted every bit the puppy. She was massive, easily nearly a hundred pounds, and liked to sleep in his and Riley’s bed, even though it wasn’t nearly big enough for the three of them. Sam liked to gripe about it, but the truth was that most of the time he was the one that let the dog up on the bed. He just couldn’t stand her low, lonely whining. 

They’d gotten the dog a while back, and even though it was technically Riley’s dog, Sam had gotten the honor of naming her, and he’d chosen _Red,_ after Natasha. The dog had the same fighting spirit; the torn ear and scarred nose had shown the puppy to have some rough origins, and Natasha knew all about rough origins. Sam had recognized a kindred spirit from the first moment he’d laid eyes on the dog, and Riley had just laughed at him, knowing fighting the urge to take home the stray was a lost cause. Sam had fallen in love at first sight, which meant it had a home with Riley. They bought kibble and a collar before they’d even made it to the vet for a quick check up. 

If you asked Riley, he’d tell people he was always indulging Sam like that. And there was a bit of truth in that. Sam had always been a sucker for a lost cause. 

He climbed out of bed, used the facilities, and then stumbled into the kitchen. There, Riley stood before the stove in his boxers, his blonde black hair sticking up in every direction. Sam padded across the room to him, brushing a kiss against the curve of Riley’s shoulder blade, snagging the half-drunk cup of coffee in his outstretched hand.

“That’s mine!” Riley grunted.

“Possession is nine-tenths of the law, man,” Sam replied, gulping down the drink. 

He closed his eyes, letting himself savor it for only a moment before swiping a piece of bacon from a plate. Tearing the bacon in half, he tossed half of it down to Red who caught it eagerly, tail wagging. Sam swallowed the other half.

“What time is your flight again?” Riley asked.

“Not for another three hours.”

Riley frowned. “Still don’t understand why you gotta go to Germany on such short notice.”

“I told you, Riley. It’s a work thing. Someone dropped out last minute on the lecture, and they want me to step in. It’s no big deal. I’ll be back within a week.”

Riley kept frowning, turning back to the stove and refocusing on the bacon. Sam didn’t like lying to his boyfriend, but what else could he say? _I’m leaving on a jetplane to take a cure for immortality, no big deal?_ It wasn’t like he could ever begin to tell Riley the truth. Not that he hadn’t thought about it a hundred times since first meeting him.

Still, despite his conviction to take the cure, Sam couldn’t deny he felt a quiver of misgivings. He felt nervous as he packed his bag. He felt restless as he and Riley went out the front door in sweatpants, with Red at their side, running to keep up in the morning jog. He felt queasy as he took a shower and got dressed. By the time he checked his phone, Sam found two unheard voice messages from Bucky, another from Natasha, and the last one from Steve. He couldn’t make himself listen to any of them, not since he’d sent out that text early the other day, the one that made his decision to take the cure clear. He’d been dodging the calls and texts ever since.

But right before he left for the airport, he saw Peggy’s ID pop up, and Sam took _that_ call. “Hey.” 

Peggy sounded surprised, “I’m glad you picked up.”

Sam grunted. “Figured if I could talk to any one of you guys right now, it’d be you. Least likely to try to talk me out of coming to Germany.”

“If it’s your decision to take the cure, God knows I won’t judge.”

“Yeah,” Sam said, smiling. “Then what’s this that I hear about your decision to decline, then?”

“Funny thing,” Peggy replied. “An unexpected development caught me off guard.”

“You start this whole seventy-year-long campaign to find yourself a cure, and you get caught off guard by the guy who’s been in love with you since the invention of gunpowder?”

“It’s not that straightforward.”

“Yeah, it really is.”

Peggy huffed a breath, but she didn’t bother to deny it any further. Sam hid a small smile. He was glad Steve and Peggy had finally gotten their shit together, and of course, Peggy wasn’t taking the cure for the same exact reason that Sam _was_. Love was tricky like that.

“Well,” Sam said, deciding to keep the teasing at a minimal. “I’m glad that Bucky and Nat don’t have to be dealing with a moping Steve for all of eternity. Trust me, we’ve dealt with that for most of the twentieth century, and it was _not_ fun.”

Peggy hesitated on the other end, for a moment. “Speaking of Bucky and Natasha…”

Sam groaned. “What did they do?”

“They’re coming to Germany, too,” Peggy answered. “They wanted to fly in with you. I expect, to… talk to you.”

“Talk me out of my decision, you mean,” he said, groaning. 

This was precisely the reason he hadn’t been taking any calls.

“They’re waiting for you at the airport,” Peggy only said. “You guys are on the same flight in from California.”

Sam scrubbed a hand across his face, already dreading it, but mentally preparing himself for it because he knew it’d been coming, one way or another. He owed everyone a face-to-face before he took the cure, as painful as it would be. Not for the first time, he understood why Peggy had hid away for so long while wrestling with this decision. It would have been easier to do this by avoiding everyone – the coward’s way, perhaps, but the appeal was strong. 

Sam knew he couldn’t do it that way, not if he wanted to do this the _right_ way. 

But, man, the decision to avoid was attractive.

“You ready?” Riley said, popping his head in. “We gotta leave now if we want to avoid traffic.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Sam answered, then turned back to Peggy on the phone. “Look, I gotta go. I’ll see you in a few hours.”

“Good luck, Sam. And just remember, whatever your decision is, we’ll support you.”

Sam didn’t have to worry about Peggy’s support. Or even Steve’s or Natasha’s, when push came to shove. Bucky, on the other hand… Facing Bucky was going to be painful.

Sam hung up and turned back to Riley with a forced smile. “Ready to go.”

Sam bid a quick farewell to his dog, scratching Red behind the ears, and then climbed into Riley’s beat-up old jeep. The ride to the airport was mostly silent, mainly because Sam didn’t know what to talk about. He couldn’t think of a thing to say, and Sam always had something to say. If Riley noticed his silence or awkwardness, he didn’t comment on it. Maybe he understood that Sam was nervous, but Riley couldn’t understand, could he? Not really. He couldn’t understand the significance of the trip ahead of Sam, because he didn’t know who or what Sam really was – and that was a horrible secret to keep. 

Riley did not know that Sam was actually Samuel Willelm, born 1793 in Senegal, French West Africa, the son of a murdered lieutenant; that Sam had been dubbed “the Young Eagle” by his fellow countrymen and brothers-in-arms at somewhere around the age of twenty-three because he had a sharp eye and his aim never failed. Riley had never been told that Sam had been part of the _Tirailleurs Sénégalais,_ a troop of colonial infantry made up of mostly colored soldiers, riflemen or sharpshooters of some grand renown. Riley had never guessed at the true origin of the scar on Sam’s back, the bullet wound he’d gotten in 1815 during the battle of Waterloo, the same day Napoleon had fled the countryside in humiliation and tears with his ultimate defeat.

Sam’s skin was smooth now, only a small dark scar remaining at the small of his back. Sometimes he could forget about it, and all the other wounds and scars that had healed and disappeared over the years. And unlike the rest of the Winter Soldiers, Sam was young enough that he could still vividly remember the family he was borne into, the faces of his younger brother and sister; he could remember the sound of laughter in their throats. He didn’t want to grow so old that one day he’d forget that. He didn’t think he would be a better man for having forgotten where he came from.

But if Sam handled things just right, Riley would never know any of that, or the two hundred years of history and bloodshed that followed after. Sam could make peace with his past and move on. 

But first, he had to face his family.

The drop off was quick, and Sam tried to assure and fortify himself of his decision with a long meaningful kiss with Riley, the type that left his partner a little breathless at the end of it. “What was that for?” Riley asked.

Sam grinned. “Something to remember me by, while I’m gone.”

But the grin faded when Sam made it passed security and through the long march to the gate. He was there for no more than five minutes before he heard footsteps approaching. Sam looked away from the windows and found himself staring into the glaring face of Bucky. The other man was dressed in a business suit, of all things. Natasha, at his side, sported a small black dress and carried a brown attaché case that matched Bucky’s suit more than her own. Sam belatedly remembered their aliases (as he’d been the one to set them up) as a pair of civil suit lawyers from California. They slid into the pair of chairs across from Sam with only the barest hints of recognition, aside from the glower that seemed permanently etched on Bucky’s face.

They were supposed to play strangers, while in public. 

Sam wasn’t interested in the charade, though.

“You know, your face can get stuck like that,” Sam told Bucky. “Nat already has to put up with your ugly mug. Don’t make it worse for her.”

Bucky didn’t react to the bait like he normally did. “You really gonna do this?”

Sam sighed. “What? Not even a _hello_? No pleasantries?”

“Fuck pleasantries,” Bucky replied.

Quietly, beside him, Natasha closed her eyes and took a deep breath, as if trying to mentally fortify herself. “How about we pretend we’re part of civilization for a moment?” she said, eyes heatedly locked on Bucky. “Instead of the standard maladjusted warriors that have the self-awareness of a small fly. Just for the fun of it?”

Bucky snapped his mouth shut, but still glowered. Sam exchanged a quick look with Natasha, conveying his gratitude. If he knew Natasha and Bucky at all, he knew Natasha must have already had a conversation with Bucky about keeping his trap shut, at least at the beginning. But Bucky always had difficulty with keeping himself in check when he felt passionately about something.

This was going to be a long flight.

“We’ve never even met the dude,” Bucky muttered under his breath, about Riley. 

Sam’s shoulders stiffened. That much was true. Natasha and Bucky were both part of that life of Sam’s that he kept separate, hidden from Riley. 

“I’ll make introductions,” Sam said quietly.

Bucky snorted. “Right. Sure. And in sixty years when we’re still the same and you’re drooling into your pre-chewed food paste because you forgot to put in your dentures, what’ll you say to Riley then?”

Natasha cut in before Sam had to answer, defusing the tension. “I imagine it’ll be incoherent mumbling because of the lack of teeth.”

Bucky glared at her, and Natasha glared right back, a battle of his anger and her stubbornness warring. Sam found himself watching the pair and smiling, despite himself. Jesus, he loved these two. They were annoying as fuck, and both too obstinate for their own good; they always went toe-to-toe with each other over everything, and for over two centuries Sam had to watch their freaky little foreplay play out in a thousand different ways. As much as Sam griped about being forced to watch it, he honestly loved it. 

“I need you to man-the-fuck-up,” Natasha hissed to Bucky, “and just talk to Sam like a grown adult.” She turned her glare back towards Sam. “ _If_ you two are capable of that feat.”

“Hey,” Sam protested, offended. “I’ve been completely mature during this whole conversation, thank you very much.”

“ _Your face can get stuck like that_?” Natasha parroted his earlier words back at him, exasperated. “You’re over two centuries old, Sam. Act at least a _tenth_ of your age. Just fucking talk to each other like normal people.”

Bucky sunk further back into his seat, glowering. And if Bucky was gonna be like that, Sam wasn’t going to deal with his nonsense. This decision was hard, and he wasn’t going to engage with Bucky while he was being a petulant asshole about it. Sam crossed his arms over his chest and looked out the window towards the tarmac. Silence descended.

“Jesus,” Natasha swore under her breath.

#

“Jesus,” Peggy swore under her breath.

She collapsed onto Steve’s chest until the tremors passed. Peggy could barely move or think. He swept a hand across her back, murmuring encouragement as he regained his own breath. She bent to sloppily kiss Steve’s open mouth, then pushed to roll away from him. Staring up at the ceiling, she heard him dispose of the condom, and then pull her back against him. 

“Now _that_ ,” she told him, catching her breath, “was a proper work out.”

“Peggy,” he groaned.

“Still haven't tired of saying my name, I see.”

“You’re _hilarious,_ ” he muttered.

“And you love it.”

There was a weighty pause, and she could tell he was smiling. “I do. I really, truly do.”

He was such a sap. She loved it. “But we really should get out of bed,” Peggy told him.

Steve grunted, seemingly in agreement, but only pulled her closer. Peggy stretched her legs pleasantly. She hadn’t been joking about the work-out, though. All day he’d had pent-up energy, worried and frustrated over Sam’s pending arrival, and Steve was taking it out in ways that Peggy did _not_ in the least bit mind. But it’d been a long time since she’d gotten this type of exercise. Steve may have become a weightlifting fanatic, but clearly Peggy was going to have to start up a new gym membership and up her calisthenic training. She knew she’d be feeling the burn in her legs for a while.

She could have blamed the boredom; they hadn’t had anything to do in nearly two days now, locked up indoors. Wanda had been gone all afternoon, shopping, given that she’d successfully argued the fact that she was the only one that Shield wasn’t actively looking for among the Winter Soldiers. Everyone else had been gone for the afternoon, which left Steve and Peggy all alone in Thor’s flat for hours on end. They’d spent nearly all of it in bed. Peggy could have blamed the boredom, but the truth was they probably needed at least an uninterrupted week just to get all of this feral desperation out of their system.

Sex with Steve had always been great, but right now there was a marked frenzy to it. She still couldn’t stop reaching for him. This fission of a rekindled relationship was still new and energizing, and once they started touching, it was almost impossible to stop.

Still, she glanced at the clock with a frown. “Darling, we’re going to be late.”

He groaned. “Right, right. We should take a shower—”

“Separately,” Peggy cut in.

“Not my first preference.”

“Go.” She shoved him lightly, nodding to the bathroom. “Be quick about it.” 

He sighed heavily, but dutifully pressed a kiss to her shoulder blade and pulled away. By some small miracle, they got ready without further distractions. Steve got a text alert from Sam that their plane had landed. It would still be a while before the trio would make it through customs and baggage, so Peggy and Steve set out in search of Wanda to get on their way.

It wasn’t until they were pulling Thor’s front door shut behind them and heard the loud pounding music of the club downstairs that Peggy noticed Steve’s tense mood had returned. Wanda had taken a liking to _The Asgard_ , much to Steve’s consternations. They jogged downstairs. By the sounds of it, the lively club was already overcrowded, and this was confirmed when they pushed open the double doors to a jam-packed room. The dancefloor took up most of the area, situated just behind the winding bar and elevator banks. The red patterned walls were vibrant, pulsating with strobing lights in contrasting greens and yellows. 

Peggy’s shoes, sensible tonight given she didn’t plan on staying in the club for very long, meant she couldn’t quite see over the crowds to find Wanda easily. Everyone had gussied up for the evening, though Peggy found it easy to spot Thor and Valkyrie in the back near the DJ booth. 

“I’ll look for Wanda,” Peggy told Steve. “You get Thor’s car keys.”

Thor had a large black SUV that would do well in picking up Sam, Natasha, and Bucky from the airport. As Steve had pointed out at least twice, with utmost annoyance, Peggy’s rental car had barely been big enough to fit a shoebox. Steve nodded, making his way towards the back, while Peggy examined the jostling crowds for Wanda. She strode along at the fringes, searching for the familiar dark hair and scarlet-red jacket. 

But then she saw it, a glimpse of a face she had not expected, an impossible face. 

Sharp blue eyes, ruby red lips, a stunning face surrounded by dark hair in long flowing curls. 

The figure was gone before Peggy could turn fully to stare, disappearing into the crowds and fading into the periphery. 

It couldn’t be.

It wasn’t possible.

But Peggy would know that face anywhere.

The lights strobed in and out, the music louder as a fast song came on, thumping and thudding almost as loudly as Peggy felt like her heart was beating. Peggy tore through the crowds, and then she caught another glimpse by the bar, this one longer, a few seconds stretched out seemingly into eternity; Peggy stared, exchanging a look with a dead woman who gave a slow wave, fingers fluttering ever so slightly in the air, a mocking _hello_. A slow smile curled her lips.

_Dottie._

More bodies filled the space, packing every millimeter of available space, jostling Peggy, making her stumble and break eye contact. When she turned back, Dottie was gone. Peggy rushed to the bar, reaching the counter and frantically searching. At first, she found nothing. Then she looked closer and found a flower and a note on the countertop, waiting for her. A yellow carnation. The note, when she lifted it, held familiar handwriting full of confident curves. _Moriendum Est._ A fragment phrase of Peggy’s favored Latin creed. The full sentence translated to “ _let us live, for we must die.”_

The note had reduced it to a single phrase: _for we must die._

A wave of horror washed through her.

“Peggy?” Steve’s voice caught her off-guard. Peggy whirled around, eyes wide and still looking for the dark-haired woman. “What is it?” he asked, concerned. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Peggy could have laughed, if she hadn’t felt like someone had walked all over her grave. It couldn’t be. For nearly a thousand years, she hadn’t heard one word or peep out of Dottie. She had assumed the other woman was dead. Steve and the others had never dreamt of Dottie, not like Peggy had with all the others, like Steve _should_ have if Dottie had been alive. A thousand years, and _nothing._ It didn’t make sense. Dottie was so long ago in the past that it seemed impossible for her to be alive. 

But she was.

For a moment, Peggy couldn’t find her voice. She didn’t know what to tell him – a ghost from the past, a blur in a sea of faces? There was a chance it was just her paranoia; there was a chance this was some cruel joke or trick. But Peggy couldn’t shake it, the overwhelming sense of déjà vu, the heightened feeling of knowledge and certainty. The smirk. It was the smirk on the woman’s painted red lips that made Peggy sure. Dottie’s smirk had always been singular, and always promised trouble.

_For we must die._

“We have to get to Erskine,” Peggy said, watching the crowds, certain she was being watched right back by someone among the throngs of people. “We have to leave _now_. Where’s Wanda?”

“With Thor and Valkyrie,” Steve answered.

Peggy looked, and saw the young girl lounging in the VIP section with Thor and Valkyrie, laughing at something Thor had said. At that precise moment, though, when Peggy’s eyes found hers, Wanda looked up and straightened, as if sensing the turmoil of Peggy even with a sea of people between them. Wanda said something to Thor and Valkyrie, and all three started making their way towards Peggy and Steve.

“What is it?” Steve demanded. “What’s going on, Peg?”

She looked to Steve and finally found her voice. “Dottie,” she told him. “Dottie is here, and I’m sorry, my darling, but we’re all in grave danger.”

Then there was a rattle of something hitting her foot and bouncing off. Peggy looked down to see a grenade. Before she could respond, Steve was already moving, jumping on top of it.

“Steve!”

And the world went up in an explosive burst of flames.

#


	14. Chapter 14

#

Peggy came back in quick jarring flashes of consciousness. No matter how many times it happened, coming back to life was always disorienting. Someone was screaming, but she barely made that out, groaning in pain, turning over on all fours to push herself upright. When she finally managed to pry her eyes fully open, the scene around her was one of chaos. The room was blown wide open, people screaming, blood everywhere. People were rushing for the exit, but it was like a stampede that turned into a bottleneck. Peggy’s focus drifted, disoriented, and the sound of everything felt detached, the ringing in her ears from a ruptured eardrum making everything distant and dull. It was unfortunately not an unfamiliar sensation. Then Peggy narrowed her focus onto the gruesome sight of a body not far from hers. 

Steve was lying at his side. A huge chunk of his body was missing.

Peggy cried out his name as she moved, in agony and fear, stumbling to him. Around her, patrons of the _Asgard_ continued to shriek and yell, tripping over themselves in their attempts to reach safety. Before she could make it to Steve, Thor and Wanda were at Peggy’s side, helping her to stand. Delirious, her only goal to reach Steve, she pushed them off her.

“Steve,” she muttered.

“Go,” Wanda said to Thor. “Help others. I have them.”

Thor left, but Peggy didn’t care, still trying to make it to Steve. She looked down and realized a huge piece of her left leg was missing, other parts burnt and bleeding. The healing was slow going. It didn’t matter. Only Steve mattered. With the help of Wanda’s slight frame, they managed to lurch to Steve’s side. Pieces of rubble covered him. Peggy collapsed beside him, grabbing a fistful of his shirt and hauling him over. His blood smeared her hands.

He was dead. Half his torso was missing. 

“Oh god,” Wanda said, collapsing next to him. “I can’t feel him. He’s—”

“It takes a moment,” Peggy breathed. 

The big wounds always took longer to recover. They gaped at Steve, both waiting, ignoring the chaos around them. Thor and Valkyrie were both assisting people out of the destroyed clubroom, gathering the fallen and helping them move. Likely because of Steve’s stupid and courageous act of jumping on the grenade, taking the brunt of the blast himself, no one else had been killed. He’d gotten the worst of it – and Peggy, too, who’d been standing next to him. But already Peggy was healing. 

Why wasn’t he?

“Steve, wake up,” Peggy urged, hands stroking his face. He lay unmoving. Not a flicker of healing was taking place, not even on a superficial level. His chest was an open cavity enough that she could see his organs. She pulled his face up, trying to cajole him back to consciousness. “C’mon,” she urged, desperately. “Come back to me, darling.”

For a brief moment, Peggy panicked and wondered if this was it. This was the moment of his true death, as unexpected and whimsical as it had been with Dugan when he died. There had been no warning. No time to prepare for his death. One day he had been immortal, and the next Steve had carried home Dugan’s ravaged body with haunted eyes. 

Wanda sounded panicked. “Why isn’t he coming back—”

“It takes time,” Peggy cut in, desperately, eyes watering. “It sometimes takes time.”

But even as she repeated it, there was a part of her that panicked. _No. It couldn’t be. Not when she had just gotten Steve back. It couldn’t be now. Not now._

“Oh god,” Wanda breathed, horrified. “I didn’t know. I didn’t—”

“Wake up, Steve,” Peggy breathed, getting more frantic. “You said you had my back, and I’m still alive. So, _wake up!”_

A blessed and surprised puff of air fell from his lips. Steve came back to life with a surge, gasping. Finally, she could see his wounds begin to heal. Peggy and Wanda both collapsed a little with relief, tears threatening to spill down their cheeks. It took a moment for Steve to realize what was happening, and he grunted.

“Are you crying?” he asked the girls, concerned. “Don’t cry.”

Peggy wiped angrily at her cheeks, a hysterical laugh nearly escaping her lips. “Don’t scare us like that,” she told him. She turned to Wanda, finally able to think. “Go, help the others.”

Wanda nodded, and now that Steve was healing, she refocused and fled to help Thor and Valkyrie with the civilians. Steve attempted to move, but Peggy forced him back down. He was still half a body, muscles mending itself, organs realigning, skin sealing itself over the bloody mess. It always took forever to heal, this type of death. 

“You jumped on a grenade, Steve,” she told him, irately.

“You would’ve done it first,” Steve replied, grunting, clearly in pain. 

The floor, by this point, had cleared of civilians. Peggy was thankful. She didn’t want anyone gawking at Steve while he healed, or – god forbid – taking a picture. Still, they couldn’t stay here for long. Even if they weren’t high on the list of Shield’s Most Wanted, even if the explosion wouldn’t draw the immediate attention of local authorities, there was still the complication of Dottie. Peggy searched around, but there was no sight of the other woman.

_For we must die._

“We have to get moving,” she told Steve, wincing. “She’ll go after Erskine.”

Even disoriented and wounded, hurting everywhere, Steve was quick to understand. “Dottie? How? I thought she was dead.”

“So did I,” Peggy said, panting.

By now, the abrasions on his face and arms had mostly healed. His stomach was still an absolute disaster, but they couldn’t afford to rest for long. They had to move soon. Peggy glanced around, and there, impossibly, having survived the blast, were the petals of the yellow carnation that Dottie had left for her. It had wilted and blown apart, but she could see the splash of color. Yellow carnations were the symbol of disappointment and rejection. 

Dottie was just beginning with her games. 

Steve eventually sat up. “I can move.”

He still looked like hell, but Peggy couldn’t afford to voice objections. She helped him stand, and together they stumbled out of the room together to the pandemonium outside. Already, the _feuerwehr_ , a number of German fire fighters were rushing onto the scene. People were everywhere – screaming, crying, and panicked. Peggy and Steve stumbled through the crowds, and even as his stomach wound healed, he looked an absolute disaster. Peggy probably looked no better. A paramedic approached them from the side, but Peggy waved him off and pointed him towards a young woman who was clutching a bloody gash on her forehead.

They rested for a beat against the brick wall of the opposing building, letting Steve catch his breath. By now, the skin on his stomach had healed, which meant the organs had too. He still looked pale and winded. His shirt was torn open, displaying the long expanse of his abdomen and chest. When Steve finally nodded to her, recovered enough, they moved to the parking lot. As they crossed, they saw Wanda, Thor, and Valkyrie all speaking with the authorities. Everyone ducked their heads and looked the other way. 

“Erskine first?” Steve asked.

They could go pick up Sam, Bucky, and Natasha from the airport, but something warned Peggy not to delay in reaching Erskine. As much as she would have liked the back-up, she didn’t think she had the luxury of wasting that type of time. They didn't even have functional cell phones, both having been destroyed in the blast. It was just Peggy and Steve on this one.

In the back parking lot, Steve hotwired a truck and stole a man’s sweatshirt from the backseat, zipping it up to cover the tattered remains of his shirt. Peggy gave him instructions to Erskine’s residence while he drove. They made it onto the major roadway quickly, with several lanes in each direction and plenty of cars. When Steve drove passed a lengthy line of emergency vehicles and police driving in haste to the _Asgard_ , neither of them said anything. Peggy sat in the racing shadows, the intermittent flashing lights creating brief explosions of light and dark inside the truck as it moved speedily down the street.

“Peg,” he said eventually, when the police had passed. “Are you sure it was Dottie?”

Peggy looked out the window, staring at the blurry scenery as it rushed by. “Yes.”

Stillness descended, screaming in its pregnant silence. 

With one heavy crashing wave, Dottie had announced her return and suddenly Peggy realized it. The wild turn of events, the crazy things that had been happening lately, everything unfolding at once. From Shield marking her as an enemy, to her reunion with the Winter Soldiers, to Howard Stark’s death, to Erskine’s breakthrough with the cure. It all made sense why it was all happening at once. It was because someone had been manipulating events in Peggy’s life. Dottie had conspired to make this all happen one after another. Peggy wasn’t sure how, but her faith in Dottie’s abilities to mastermind such an untangling mess of events was firm. 

Which meant Dottie still had things planned. Things that had yet to unfold.

She knew she had to tell Steve something, say something. Peggy had no idea what. The last time she had seen Dottie, it had been the spring of 1156 A.D., and Peggy had been in Cyprus defending against a widespread plundering of the Byzantine island. It had been a horrible raid, the Crusaders robbing and pillaging every building, convent, shop, and private residence. The crops had burnt, the population rounded up and driven down the coast where they had been loaded onto ships and sold into slavery. 

The massacre lasted weeks, and at the end of it, Peggy had realized that Dottie had not only been partaking in the carnage, but she had been leading the charge.

“I gave her an ultimatum,” Peggy told Steve, very quietly. “When we parted, I told her that if I ever saw her again, I would lock her in a steel cage and bury her at the bottom of the ocean.”

Steve swore under his breath, knowing Peggy well enough to know if she had threatened it, she had meant it. Peggy swallowed the feeling of dread and horror, closing her eyes against an unexpected onslaught of tears and emotion. This was why she hated talking about Dottie. Even after centuries, nearly a full millennium of silence, the sting was still there. 

She had told Steve bits and pieces before, enough for him to know that Dottie and Peggy had gained immortality at the same time. They had both killed each other, actually, in their first deaths. _Petronia of Carthage_ and _Demetria of Syracuse_. Peggy and Dottie, sworn Roman and Greek enemies. They had both re-awakened on the battlefield, staring at each other in shock and horror. After their initial clash (and several more deaths), Dottie had eventually become an ally, then a friend. Then, quickly after that, Peggy’s lover. They had been happy for a long time. A very long time.

Then, immortality had twisted Dottie into something unrecognizable.

“She killed an entire village once,” Peggy offered, numbly, “just to see how the story would spread. She gained quite a reputation for herself. During the last fifty years, we spent it fighting each other. Killing each other, over and over again. I couldn’t do it anymore.”

There was no end to it, not when both were immortal. It had been wishful thinking to hope that Dottie had truly died at some point in the last thousand years. Peggy knew that deep down. She knew this day had been coming for her. Dottie had always been so very patient.

“I should have put her in the ocean,” Peggy said, very quietly, still staring out the window. “I should have neutralized her as best I could. I knew she’d only cause more death and destruction. I just… I couldn’t. I...” Peggy trailed off.

“You loved her,” Steve finished, voice tight.

Peggy looked back to him, jaw clenched, and couldn’t deny it. She knew she should say something to him, offer him some solace or comfort, but Peggy had no idea what to say. Dottie had no place in Peggy’s heart anymore, not after the atrocities she had committed. Nevertheless, Peggy could appreciate that this rekindled relationship with Steve was still in its infancy phase. His apprehension over her long-lost lover’s reappearance was not unexpected. Dottie was not like Daniel Sousa, after all. She was not fleeting. Dottie endured, and left lasting marks.

Still, Peggy had to say something to Steve. “That was a long time ago, Steve. I have no such feelings left for her.”

Steve remained silent, but she could feel the doubt lingering in the air. 

Peggy had no idea how to dispense that.

There were blue-and-white signs along the side of the road and, at one of them, Peggy told him to take the exit. Erskine lived in a high-rise luxury apartment, overlooking a beautiful park and a lively shopping complex. There were still plenty of people milling about enjoying the nightlife, some of whom stopped and stared at the state of Peggy and Steve when they got out of the vehicle. Steve tried to ignore this, but Peggy knew that wouldn’t dissuade unwanted attention. 

Instead, she tugged Steve to a stop. Then she pulled him down for a kiss. A part of her had been using the embrace as a means of diversion, until Peggy could feel the eyes watching them fall away in discretion or embarrassment. Public displays of affection made people uncomfortable. But it was more than that. Her hand came up to gently hold him to her, and despite the softness of the touch, Peggy did not hold back in the emotions behind it. Peggy wanted him to understand that, for her, there was no second-guessing. It was Steve, through and through, that held her heart. She hated that she’d allowed even the opportunity for doubt to fester, even for a moment. 

The kiss seemed to coax Steve away from some of his doubts and despondency, and she felt that shift in the way he responded, deepening the kiss, becoming _demanding_ in the kiss. His tongue pressed against her lips, and then permission granted, pressed into her mouth; the embrace went electric, far more seductive and erotic than she had originally intended. Peggy moaned, and her fingers scraped across his scalp, before she finally forced herself to pull back. Both of them were breathless. Indeed, no one else was looking at them anymore.

“That was a bit more PDA than I had intended,” Peggy breathed softly.

Steve didn’t look apologetic. Instead, he looked sober and perhaps even determined. And because Steve only cared about others’ wellbeing far and above any self-preservation, she knew he was focused on her. His arm wound around her waist as they moved toward the building. For one blinding moment, Peggy cursed her life. All she wanted was Steve, and the realization sank in with shocking certainty that her life wasn’t going to be that simple.

Once they made it inside the building, they separated. They took the stairs rather than the elevator, looking for something out of place. They soon found more than enough evidence. Two bodies littered the hallway on Erskine’s floor. Another in the foyer of his apartment where they found the door left wide open. The bodies were dressed in paramilitary outfits, just like the ones that had attacked Sam, Bucky, and Natasha weeks back. Peggy was sure Erskine had taken these men down. As much as he was an old man, as much as he was now mortal, he had lived a life as a warrior for too many generations. 

They entered Erskine’s apartment, pushing into the living room until they found the man himself – a gory mess on the floor. Peggy rushed forward, turning over Erskine to reveal him unconscious, but not dead. His face had been beaten bloody.

“He put up a fight,” a voice announced, one so familiar it had imprinted itself on Peggy’s subconscious, the forever devil’s voice to Steve’s better angels. “Quite spry for an old guy.”

Peggy turned around. Dottie was still wearing the same outfit that she had on at the club: a white halter top with a gathered peephole detail over her chest, a matching belt, a pair of skin-tight black leather pants. There was blood, though, on the halter top. Likely Erskine’s. And then Dottie moved, reaching for some old flashy gold staff weapon. The scepter had a long-pointed edge, almost as sharp as a curved sword, and a bright blue stone rested at the top. 

“Don’t,” Dottie warned, and Peggy realized Steve had been preparing to spring an attack. “My men have left a little gift downstairs. A bomb set right in the middle of the corner café. You do anything to me, I don’t check in with my men, and this building full of people goes sky high. As the _Asgard_ proves, I’m not above a little explosion here and there to keep things interesting.”

Unfortunately, Dottie never bluffed. 

Peggy looked to the side and nodded to Steve to stand down. 

“What do you want, Dottie?” Peggy said.

Dottie laughed. “That’s it? A thousand years, and I get that as a greeting?”

“Better than a grenade,” Peggy offered.

“God, Peggy, I was hoping in the last millennia you had grown a sense of humor. What’s an explosion among immortals? I knew you’d survive it.”

“And the room full of other people?” Steve said. 

Dottie’s eyes drifted to Steve as if she had forgotten he’d been standing right by Peggy’s side. She gave him an appraising look, smiling with teeth. Dottie had always been the biggest personality in any room, seeking the spotlight and everybody, even Peggy, had gravitated towards that. Now, however, it only left that bad flavor in her mouth, that demented taste that was so achingly familiar and heartbreaking. 

“You don’t remember me, do you?” Dottie said to Steve, amused.

Steve’s eyes narrowed. “Should I?”

Dottie only smiled enigmatically and glanced back at Peggy. “He’s very pretty. Not particularly smart, though.”

“What are you want, Dottie?” Peggy demanded again.

Dottie made a noncommittal noise. “It’s like you’ve forgotten all your manners. How about a little warm up first? Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten the meaning of foreplay.”

Peggy glared, and she hated that Dottie was even able to draw that reaction out of her. She was sure the jab had partly been for Steve’s benefit, too, a remark on their love life – and it worked like a charm, because Steve’s face pinched at the insult. Dottie was still smiling at their reactions as she carted herself off toward the wet bar in the back, pulling free a bottle. Dottie leaned her staff against the wall as she poured herself a drink. 

Steve had taken the moment to check over Erskine, assessing his injuries and then looking back up at Peggy with a deep frown that conveyed a host of concerns. It was bad. Erskine was old, too. Now mortal, she didn’t know what his body could withstand.

There was a briefcase on the table, too. It was closed, but Peggy recognized it as the type that Erskine used to house medical supplies. Things like needles and medication. Things like the serums. 

“So,” Dottie said, conversationally, “you finally got the cure, but I understand you’re not taking it?”

Peggy’s lip thinned into a fine line. It was one thing that Dottie knew about the hunt for the cure, a decades’ old development that promised a whole host of complications. It was another that she knew about Peggy’s recent decision to not take the cure. Whatever way that Dottie was getting her information, it was from a close source. Very close. 

“Erskine’s mind was very resilient,” Dottie said, when Peggy did not respond. “It took a lot for me to get him to tell me what he did with the serums. I have both versions now.” She nodded to the briefcase on the table, confirming Peggy’s suspicions. “We wouldn’t want something that important falling into the wrong hands.”

Peggy exchanged a sideways glance with Steve. If Dottie kept possession of both the Super Soldier Serum and the Immortality Cure, their problems would only increase exponentially. Dottie did not miss the exchange, and sighed. She glanced from Peggy to Steve, seemingly annoyed that Peggy wasn’t engaging her as she wanted. It was Peggy’s best tactic. A game of banter would only play into Dottie’s hands. Peggy needed to evade and obfuscate where necessary.

But then Dottie said, turning to Steve, “I really don’t appreciate the stonewall. Isn’t it just the worst? I mean, you know what that’s like, don’t you, Steve? She left you, too.”

The tension in Steve’s body made it look like it was carved from stone, but he seemed to be following Peggy’s lead, saying nothing. 

Dottie took a sip of her drink, inspecting Steve as if he was an amusing pet. After a brief moment, she picked up her staff and walked forward to him. “You’re cute,” she told him. “And you’ve got that _All-American-Boy_ routine down pat. I can see why she likes you. You’ve got that same moral fortitude as her.”

“Also,” Steve added, pleasantly enough, “ _sanity_.”

Dottie laughed, and then quickly sobered. “But admit it, it hurts, doesn’t it? To be abandoned by the person you love the most. You and I have a lot in common that way. Peg—” 

“Don’t,” Peggy warned, suddenly feverish. She advanced on Dottie, but Dottie held up her staff, a warning and a weapon – not that Peggy needed the additional incentive, with the bomb downstairs. Still, she couldn’t let Dottie’s words go unanswered. “You and he are _nothing_ alike.”

Dottie’s eyes sparkled, apparently pleased she had finally gotten a rise out of Peggy. _Bloody hell._ She glanced back to Steve, smile still in place, assessing. “You would think, wouldn’t you? I mean, just from a glance, we’re as opposite as night and day. He’s so _earnest_ , so good. Me? Well, we both know I prefer entertainment to morals. And yet, the thing we have in common? We’re both not good enough for the great Peggy Carter. We will never be good enough, isn’t that right, Steve?”

“I have nothing to say to you,” Steve replied, evenly. 

Dottie kept smiling, then tapped the end of her scepter to Steve’s chest; it wasn’t a violent act. Peggy doubted it even pierced the skin, otherwise Peggy would have launched an assault. But Steve responded to it, gasping heavily, as if in pain. Then a blue energy worked from the scepter and into Steve, crawling into his veins, up his face. His eyes turned obsidian black.

“Steve?” Peggy breathed, alarmed.

“Tell me, Steve,” Dottie said, sweetly, “what’s the most awful thing Peggy has ever done to you?”

“Sarah,” he said immediately, and Peggy felt that name pierce right through her center. “She left me right after our daughter died.”

Dottie _tssked_ , dramatically, and turned away. “And?” she prompted.

His black eyes kept staring at nothing, unblinking. “She left and didn’t come back. It didn’t matter, anyone else’s pain. It didn’t compare to her own.”

“This is my surprised face,” Dottie deadpanned.

Peggy felt Steve’s words like a blow to the chest, and a part of her wanted to believe whatever Steve was saying was because of what was happening to him, this strange spell that Dottie had put him under. But deep down, of course, Peggy knew the truth. Sarah had always been Peggy’s biggest wound, and her greatest shame. The way she’d handled her daughter’s death had not been honorable or fair, most of all to Steve. She knew that. She’d always known that.

Peggy turned towards Dottie, furious and heartsick. “What are you doing to him?” she demanded. “What is that staff?”

Dottie sighed. “A thousand years, and you’re still stuck back in the dark ages. Peggy, haven’t you ever wondered what else is out there? They used to call us _sorceresses_ , for god’s sake. Where is your imagination? Didn’t you ever wonder if there was ever such a thing as magic?”

“You’ve gone delusional,” Peggy said. “You’ve always been mad. Now you’re got—”

“Don’t!” Dottie whirled around, angry. “Don’t talk like them! You and I, we’ve seen what this world has done. We know what it’s capable of. I’ve just had a little more ambition. I started looking, ages ago. At mysticism, the supernatural. Some may even call it extraterrestrial. The power these things have,” Dottie said, holding up the scepter, “you can’t even imagine.”

Peggy attacked without warning, launching herself at Dottie. Dottie ducked an incoming uppercut and whirled, grabbing Peggy's arm to defend herself from a strike. Peggy rebounded by twisting, slamming an elbow into Dottie’s face, making her drop the scepter. Dottie sidestepped and crouched, using her agility to roll away. Peggy stuck out her foot, snagging the other woman by the ankle but Dottie went into a dive and came back up on her legs. 

“Finally,” Dottie said, pleased. “Some foreplay.”

They both went in for the next strike at the same moment, and a part of her expected it to be like no time had passed at all, the fight too much like muscle memory. Fighting with Dottie had honed Peggy’s skills for centuries. But where she advanced and expected Dottie to know when to retreat, or side-step with a parry, there was an attack. When Dottie leaped towards her, Peggy was waiting for the old familiar hook or the jab that hurt like hell, but she got a swipe of the legs that had Peggy stumbling. They had both grown as warriors in their time apart, both adapted in different ways. It made for a messy fight.

Peggy dodged and pushed forward, attempting to grab the scepter. Dottie kicked the weapon away, and it slid across the tile floor to rest near Erskine’s prone body.

The entire time, Steve stood motionless like a zombie.

Peggy scrambled to the floor, skidding across, and finally came up with the scepter in her hands. 

But Dottie had used the time to grab hold of something else; she was standing at Steve’s back, holding a syringe against his jugular. The case with the serums on the table was open, a display of two rows – red and blue syringes. Dottie had a needle filled with red liquid pressed against his throat.

“The Immortality Cure,” Dottie said, sweetly. 

Peggy froze. What made matters worse was that the commotion had drawn attention, and the next second, Dottie’s men, more soldiers in paramilitary uniforms, flooded the apartment. Rumlow was with them.

“Hydra?” Peggy deduced, by Rumlow’s presence, disgusted. “You work for Hydra now, Dottie?”

Dottie laughed. “Oh, Peg, sweetie. I _am_ Hydra. Who do you think created the organization?” She pressed the tip of the syringe further into Steve’s throat, and he just stood there, wacked-out and dazed. “Drop the scepter, or you find out what it’s like to lose lover boy.”

Peggy stayed still, but she knew she was beat. Her wild gambit hadn’t paid off. Slowly, she set the scepter down on the ground and then kicked it away.

But Dottie was still waiting with the syringe at Steve’s throat.

“Dottie,” Peggy warned. “I let go of the scepter. Pull away from him.”

“Why?” 

“He’s not what you want,” Peggy replied. “I am. Let him go.”

“But that’s not true, not entirely.” Dottie studied Steve’s profile, a finger tracing his cheekbones down to his sharp jawline, fascinated. “I wonder what is it about him? Can’t just be his dick, surely. What’s so special about him?”

The way Dottie was talking, the way she was eyeing Steve as an inconsequential piece of meat, frightened Peggy to her very core. Dottie could do it. Dottie could inject Steve with the cure and make him mortal. The thought was absolutely terrifying, and suddenly Peggy was right back in that clubhouse, right after the grenade had gone off, frantic and crying over Steve’s dead body. She couldn’t let that happen. Steve never wanted the cure, not for even a second. It would be an affliction and a curse for him to turn mortal.

“You don’t want him,” Peggy said, desperate, and uncaring if she sounded it. “You want me. Take _me_. Leave him out of it.” 

“Why, Peg, you really _do_ care about someone other than yourself.”

And then Dottie smirked, and that smirk had always promised trouble. 

#


	15. Chapter 15

#

For the second time in less than twenty-four hours, Steve came back to consciousness with a gasp. He hadn’t died this time, he didn’t think. But the jolt of pain in his jaw as his head snapped back was a shock to the system. He grunted, landing on his knees, explosions of colors dancing in front of his eyes; he looked up in shock and disorientation as Peggy loomed over him.

“Steve?” she breathed, anxiously.

He grunted, dazed. She had a hell of a right hook. It took him a moment to place the setting – Erskine’s apartment, with the man himself lying unconscious and bleeding not far from them. Dottie – she was nowhere to be seen. Before he could orient himself to the rest, Peggy was clutching him a bit desperately, hands balled around his sweatshirt, breathing heavily. He could see drying tear tracks down her cheeks.

“What happened?” he asked.

“She let us go.” 

Steve frowned, the world around him too bright, too colorful, and all the wrong hues. Even if Dottie wasn’t around – and Steve had no idea how that happened – he had trouble believing the woman he had met was the type to walk away from a prevailing battle. She’d had them to rights, outflanked. She didn’t seem the type to let her prey go. But the last thing he remembered was her taunting him about Peggy. She’d touched him with that golden staff of hers. Then, blackness. Nothingness. Now his head felt like it weighed a massive ton, and he couldn’t seem to find his balance.

Peggy pulled back, examining his head with a wince. “Apologies about the blow, but it was the only way I could think to knock it out of you.”

“It?” he repeated.

“Whatever Dottie’s staff did to you.”

“Where is she?”

“She’s gone. Left, with the serums.”

He blinked at Peggy, still fighting a massive headache, the room spinning slightly. He could feel Peggy’s wrought emotions in the way she was staring at him, the terror in her slight tremble. She pressed a hand to his face, examining him once more and confirming something to herself. Then she nodded and moved away. Steve felt her sudden absence like his strings had been cut, his shot nerves screaming out at the lack of contact.

But she was checking over Erskine, and Steve managed not to make a fool of himself.

“He’s bad,” Peggy said, of Erskine’s condition, “but he’s breathing.”

“We need to get him to a hospital.”

Peggy’s jaw clenched, debating with herself about something, before she reached for Erskine’s coat and searched his pockets. She found his cellphone and started dialing a number by heart. Much like the majority of the world, Germany’s emergency number was only three digits long, but Peggy kept pressing digits, so Steve knew she wasn’t calling for an ambulance. Quietly, he had a feeling he knew exactly who she was calling. 

His suspicions were confirmed when the other end picked up, and she said, “This is Peggy Carter. I understand you’ve been looking for me. I need you to help an old friend of mine. He’s hurt, so bring Simmons. Keep him alive, and I’ll come to you within twenty-four hours. You have my word.”

On the other end, he heard Phil Coulson’s response. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”

“Good,” she told him. “Also, there's a bomb in the cafe below. Take care of that.”

Peggy tossed the phone across the room but deliberately failed to hang up. Steve could hear the other man’s response, calling her name. They both ignored it. The GPS triangulation on the phone would lead Coulson right to Erskine and the bomb. He would handle things. 

“Are you sure?” Steve asked her. 

He wasn't a fan of Peggy turning herself into Shield.

“It’s time I stopped running,” Peggy announced, grimly.

Then there was only the careful negotiation of helping Steve stand, even though his legs seemed to be made of jelly. He couldn’t remember the last time he felt this disoriented. Their immortality usually meant that pain, if any, lasted only as long as any wounds – and he could see no wounds. But it felt like he was caught in molasses, his limbs unusually slow to respond, and not for the first time he wondered what Dottie’s staff was, or what she was doing, or how to deal with any of it. Peggy helped him move, and the contact with her alone seemed to help orient himself. They progressed down to the elevator and through the lobby, his stumbling steps gaining surety very slowly. They picked a new vehicle to carjack, and Steve knew without debate that he was in no condition to drive. He lowered himself into the passenger seat with a wince, while Peggy striped the wires underneath the dash. She started up the car and pulled away from the building.

Steve grimaced at the highway lights as they took the onramp. He closed his eyes and felt Peggy reach for him, her small hand clasping over his, her grip tight and concerned. He couldn’t find it in him to be reassuring, too overcome. His vision still hadn’t returned to normal, things too bright and colorful. He was sweating too, like his body was going through a strange withdrawal. Peggy’s hand in his felt like a lifeline, an anchor. He needed that. He needed more, honestly, but first they had to reach safety.

After a beat, Steve knew where they had to go. “Bucky’s family mausoleum.” 

He vaguely heard Peggy’s answering, “Yes.” 

The others would know to rendezvous there, an old safehouse they hadn’t used in years, but it was a steadfast one. Bucky had returned to Germany once the last of his sisters had died, and by then they’d all managed to accumulate a bit of wealth. He’d sunk a considerable chunk of money erecting a mausoleum in his family’s name, and the cemetery had stood the test of time. In the lower part of the graveyard, which was not accessible to the public, he had placed the family grave. His mother, his sisters, and several of their descendants, were laid to rest there in a three-room chamber made out of stucco and brick. 

But underneath the mausoleum, far below where the dead were buried, there was a hidden passageway and a series of rooms. For the Winter Soldiers, it had housed items of personal significance through the ages better than any bank or vault could, without any pesky questions or hindering measures.

“What happened back there, Peg?”

“What do you remember?” she asked him.

“That golden staff touched me, and that’s—that’s it.”

Peggy’s lips thinned into a flat line. “She let us go, to toy with us another day. Her plans for us are not over.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means so long as she has those serums, she’s a threat to everyone we care about. She’s Hydra, Steve. And I don’t mean she’s with Hydra. I mean she _is_ Hydra. She created the organization.”

“Jesus,” Steve muttered. 

She sighed forcefully. “I always knew her ambition would mean trouble, but I never—I should have guessed. I should have known that a thousand years was more than enough to time to set these types of things into motions. And that staff – god, the power it had.”

Steve thought about it, but mostly he felt Peggy was avoiding talking about what was really troubling her. Peggy had cast a long shadow over history, and he knew that Dottie had likely done the same. He wanted to offer some comfort or wisdom. He wanted to tell her not to shoulder Hydra's blame or to place herself accountable for Dottie’s actions; he knew enough about their shared history to know Peggy had suffered a great deal at Dottie’s hands, but he was also aware that any pain she bore was outweighed by guilt. 

None of that, however, acknowledged the stinging truth. That once upon a time, Peggy had loved Dottie. Steve didn’t know what to say to that, or precisely how to handle the situation. He felt he had an obvious conflict of interest. He was not proud of it. Jealousy was not an attractive quality in either Steve or Peggy, because there had been instances over the centuries in which the green little monster had brought out ugly reactions in both of them. Steve tried to fight his baser instincts, but he’d seen the way Dottie had looked at Peggy. He’d seen the way Dottie had so easily gotten under Peggy’s skin. It was all a horrible mess, and he knew it was just beginning.

They drove in silence, mostly. He could tell Peggy was processing a lot, and as much as Steve wanted to plan out and strategize their next moves, his dazed mind made it difficult to keep his head firmly on his shoulders. He had no idea what Dottie had done to him. He didn’t feel normal. It was like someone had ripped his brain out, pureed it in a blender, and poured the liquid back inside his skull. Nothing felt right except Peggy’s touch, a solid touchstone.

When they finally arrived, Steve stumbled so much through the somber graveyard that Peggy had to wedge her shoulder under his arm to assist him in walking. They lurched to the familiar landmark of Bucky’s family mausoleum and pushed open the heavy stone doors. Inside, it wasn’t as decrepit and dusty as Steve had feared. Bucky still paid for routine maintenance, and there was even a fresh torch with oil on nearby hooks. Steve leaned heavily against the wall for support while Peggy lit a torch.

The rest of the way, the torch was their only light. A secret door in the stonework on the back wall lead down into a series of well-constructed tunnels. Only the Winter Soldiers knew of its existence now. They had hid guns and ammunition there during World War II. Before that and since, it remained a collective cache of their valuables. Paintings, sculptures, gold, any type of currency, any form of sentimental objects – they had been housed here. Once upon a time, a Caravaggio painting of a Nativity scene had rested here. The tunnels went on for miles, far beyond the confines of the graveyard. Steve knew the path as sure as if he had been there just yesterday, but he couldn’t seem to get his eyes to focus as much as they needed to in the dark.

“Are you all right?” Peggy asked. 

“Yeah, yeah, just disoriented.”

There was a small pause. “Hopefully that’ll pass. That staff… did things to you.”

“Like what?”

Another pause. “You followed her command,” Peggy answered softly in the dark. “Did as she told.”

He flinched and whirled towards her. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

“No,” she answered immediately. 

But she also looked to him and away quickly, then forced her gaze to rapidly return and hold his. It was a tell. One of the few Peggy had. She was lying.

He stopped breathing. _“Peggy.”_

She shook her head, knowing she’d been caught. “It’s not what you’re thinking. You didn’t touch me, Steve. I promise.”

He kept staring, waiting for her to continue.

She sighed. “You can barely stand. We need to have a conversation about what happened with Dottie, I know that. But can we not do it while you look like death warmed over?”

He studied her under the dim light of the torch, and he hated to admit it, but she was right – he did feel like hell, and they didn’t need to have this conversation here. Reluctantly, he turned back and made his way down the tunnel. He didn’t have the whole picture with what happened between Peggy and Dottie back in Erskine’s apartment. He didn’t think he even had half the picture. Whatever it was, he knew there was no way Dottie would just let them go without some lasting damage.

When they reached their destination, he found the place had held up well. Bucky had made the place to last, fortified it with sturdy pillars and walls, high ceilings, archway doors with an eye to the aesthetic. One day, if people ever discovered it, he was sure the theories and speculations would run wild and rampant. None would come close to the truth. Despite the good construction, though, it hadn’t been used in years and the filthy condition was evident. Peggy went about removing the white cloths covering everything, kicking up a hornet nest of dust. Steve wanted to help, but now that he’d stopped moving, he felt exhausted to his bones. Beyond tired.

He could see crates at the side, and lurched over, opening one to find old recognizable items strewn about. His old belongings. There was a pile of his timeworn leather-bound sketch books. Steve reached for one, finding pages and pages of the others in eighteenth century garb. Sam was missing because he hadn’t joined them yet, but Dugan was there in a knee-length coat and breeches; Bucky in a shorter waistcoat and an upturned hat; Natasha in an open-fronted red silk gown with a train and matching petticoat; and Peggy, pages and pages of Peggy, the last one in a tight bodice dress with loose elbow-length sleeves, the color of gold, with intricate lacework along the edges. He dropped one book and moved to the next, through the ages, all the way up to the 1940s, during WWII when he’d last used these tunnels with any frequent use.

He flipped to the last pages, coming to a sketch of Peggy drawn in charcoal, her hair up in victory curls, and his fingers itched for the next drawing he could make of her. But first, he tore out a blank piece of paper from the book, rummaging through the crate to find old pieces of charcoal. Peggy had finally stopped to stare at him as he began scraping out the outline and shape of Dottie’s features, the sharp nose, the harsh lines of her cheekbones. Peggy had always described Dottie as beautiful, and Steve hated to admit it, but she was even more attractive than he had imagined over the years. Bright eyes, a piercing intellect in them that would have been enticing if it hadn’t been unnerving. He took a few minutes sketching out a clear picture of the woman who had, in a few short hours, turned his life upside down.

When he was done, he presented it to Peggy, who gave a curt nod of approval and quickly looked away. Steve had captured her likeness well, and he thought back to the taunting words she’d tossed at Steve. _You don’t remember me, do you?_ When? When had Steve seen her? He couldn’t remember, and it was a thought that festered angrily. 

“Get some rest,” Peggy told him, pointing to the cot she had uncovered. It was plain and hard, and reminded him of the old days when they had slept on the bare ground. “You look like you need it, Steve.”

He wanted to protest. Instead, he took a deep breath and nodded. When he laid down and closed his eyes, he only meant to sleep for a short while. He only meant to take a few minutes of rest. But his body had other ideas, and when he slept, he fell deep into slumber, long and hard.

#

He awoke hours later to find Peggy had tucked herself to his side at some point in the night. He doubted she was asleep; her breathing was too uneven. In the dark, he tried to orient himself and was thankful that some of the haze that had plagued him had lessened. His vision finally seemed normal, not that he could see much in the dark. He could probably move with no difficulty, but with Peggy plastered to his side, her head on his chest, every breath matching his, Steve didn’t feel the need to test the theory. She was warm, a soothing balm to his fractured nerves. 

But when her hand traced along his stomach, a light trail with just a fingertip, he already knew where her intentions were headed. One touch, and she had his attention fully. Then it was a little appalling how quickly his body came to attention, too. By the time her hand had slipped under the waistband of his pants, leveraging herself up a little to watch him, Steve had forgotten his worries. Swallowing heavily, eyes pinched shut, he concentrated on the feel of her fingers as they wrapped around him and gripped firmly.

“Peggy,” he exhaled, while she pressed kisses to his jawline, then lower to his neck. “Your hands seem to be wandering.”

“ _Shh_ , I’m seducing you,” she announced with finality.

Steve hissed in a breath, hips canting towards her hand. “Oh, are you?” he asked, just as lightly, almost magnanimously. “Well, all right then. Seduce me.”

"We don't have any condoms, otherwise I'd be riding you right now. Somehow I'll make-do."

He groaned. It was a perhaps a demonstration of love and tender care, except Steve saw stars behind his closed eyes. His breathing came out ragged and he let Peggy work him up, luxuriating in the sustaining shocks of pleasure working up his spine. It was a sharp contrast to all else he’d felt all day, and he let himself lose all thought to the sensation, trusting Peggy to carry him to the edge and carefully over. 

#

The next time he awoke, Peggy wasn’t at his side and it certainly wasn’t as pleasant. She was sitting with her back to him, and said, very quietly, “We need to talk, Steve.” Those words never heralded good news. He looked over at Peggy, struck with how fragile she suddenly looked, like the energy and confidence that had sustained her all this time since Dottie’s reappearance had disappeared like smoke. 

He caught her by the elbow very gently and urged her to turn around. “Peggy,” he said. “What is it? You can tell me anything.”

Peggy’s face crumbled, and she pulled free from his grip, wrapping her arms around her waist, defensive and withdrawn. She moved to the settee in the opposite corner, raising her hand to urge him to stay where he was when he rose to follow her. She needed distance for this. She needed space. He felt panic begin to build in his veins.

She licked her lips, looking away. “When she had you under the spell,” she told him, “you were doing everything she wanted, including standing immobile while she pressed the immortality cure to your throat. I had to do it, Steve. I didn’t want to. I had no other choice.”

A coldness washed over him, a fear unlike any other he could describe. 

“What happened?” he asked.

“I need you to promise me that you’ll remain calm,” she told him. “I need you to remember this wasn’t what I had intended, but I can… I can manage. Whatever you decide after this, to be with me or not—”

“What? Why wouldn’t I want to be with you?”

Her lips trembled, tears welling in her eyes. Quickly enough, all pretenses of normalcy fell by the wayside. The room suddenly felt oppressive and too small. “She gave me an ultimatum,” Peggy explained in a soft voice, barely a whisper. “The cure would be given to either you or me, and I couldn’t do that to you. I knew you didn’t want the cure.”

Steve froze. He realized it, of course, in that instant, a dawning horrifying realization, but she presented her arm to him as proof, rolling up her sleeve. For the first time, he noticed a thin white bandage wrapped around her forearm, speckled with blood. She removed the bindings, revealing a long thick cut, still angry and welling, unhealing. 

“I took the cure, Steve,” she told him, voice choking as it shook. 

She continued to speak while he absorbed the blow, but the words drowned out in a haze as dawning horror swept through him. She told him Dottie had let them go after Peggy had injected herself with the cure. _To save him,_ his mind added, reeling. She’d done this to save him, but that did nothing to undermine the terror. Perhaps it even added to it. All this time, he’d been choking back the fear of losing her to her own stubbornness, a pursuit of a mortal life, and he’d finally managed to convince her to delay it in the interest of a few more lifetimes with him. 

But now, they didn’t have that. 

Peggy had only the one lifetime. 

“No,” he found himself saying, dazed. “Jesus, Peg _._ ”

Peggy opened her mouth to say something, but all that came out of her was a sharp sob. She looked unable to stop, and Steve was suddenly moving, breaching the space between them to hold her, crushing her to his chest. It only made her cry harder. 

"I'm sorry," she murmured into his chest.

He stroked her hair as everything caught up with him. “You thought I’d leave you over this?” he breathed, horrified at the realization _. Whatever you decide after this, to be with me or not._ “God, Peg, I’d never—”

“You didn’t want to be with me if I took the cure,” she managed, pulling back, brashly pushing away from him. She looked up with a tear streaked face. “Don’t deny it, Steve. You didn’t want to—” 

“I didn’t want to _lose_ you.”

“I’m mortal now, Steve,” Peggy told him, as if that changed any bit of how he felt about her.

He tugged her back to his chest, wrapping his arms around her, still too overwhelmed to fully process everything, cursing Dottie and hating everything in that moment except Peggy. “I’m not leaving you. We’ll figure this out. We’ll figure this out.” They stood there for a long time, and Steve felt like he was holding onto her for dear life. His arms tightened around her a moment before he heard a noise from behind them. It was Bucky, Natasha, Sam – and Wanda, too – stepping into the dimly lit room, looking as if they’d overheard everything.

Peggy shivered as she stepped away and tried to push the grief off her face, as if it wasn’t entirely evident that she’d been crying. “You made it here,” she said, instilling some steadiness in her voice. 

Natasha was the one that stepped forward, her typical stoic gaze brimming with understanding and sympathy. “Boss,” she greeted, graciously. “I hear you had a hell of a day.”

#

Peggy tried to contain her emotions, but it felt as if the harder she tried, the more things slipped loose. Like gripping sand between clenched fingers. It didn’t take long to bring everyone up to speed. The room became claustrophobic after a bit, so they ventured topside while Peggy regaled them with everything that had happened up to date, including Dottie’s ultimatum over the cure. Peggy had known, when she’d taken it, that it was the right choice; she’d been the one to pursue the cure for decades. She’s been the one that had relentlessly chased after it. But it had always been about the _choice_ to end her mortality, her ability to control that one thing that had eluded her all her life. Now, thanks to Dottie, even that had been taken out of her hands, and Peggy felt fury and grief and heartache and a swell of too many emotions to name.

Outside, Peggy looked up at the sky and noted the first wisps of a red dawn rising. Bucky had left flowers at the graves of his mother and sisters, as he did each and every time he came to this place. Sam went straight to the car they'd come in, retrieving their bags in the back seat behind the driver's side. Steve’s expression remained a stony rigid look, but it was not in anger. At least not at her, thankfully. He always handled bad news the same way, needing a moment to digest the information. His simmering emotions brought out a brilliance in his eyes and a piercing acuity in his profile, the end result making him look sharper. It was one of the constants of the universe, how handsome he could be, and a part of Peggy ached to console him. She had no idea how. 

Wanda disappeared for a bit, then returned while pocketing a burner phone. “Thor just called,” she said. “Erskine was deposited at a local hospital by quinjet. He’s in rough shape, but he’s holding on. Thor thinks whatever your friends did, it more or less saved his life.”

Peggy nodded, and looked to Steve. They both knew that meant she had to uphold her end of the bargain. Turning herself over to Shield was a risk, but she had to seek allies and friends. If Dottie was indeed behind Hydra, then what better confederate than Shield? If she could convince Coulson, then she might have a chance at defeating Dottie and everything she stood for. High risks, high rewards.

Bucky was frowning. “We still don’t know what this Erskine guy told Dottie.”

“He was already unconscious when we arrived,” Peggy replied, and she knew she sounded tired, even to her own ears. “But she already has the serums. I have to believe that’s our only way to take Dottie down for good.”

“If there is another batch,” Wanda said, prudently, “then it’s going to be with either Thor or Valkyrie. Erskine would trust few others with it.”

Peggy nodded. The girl’s instincts were sharp. If either Thor or Valkyrie were in possession of the cure, though, she doubted they realized it yet. 

The next few minutes passed by in a blur as the others exchanged theories and ideas about this mysterious old beau of Peggy’s. Peggy remained uncharacteristically quiet. The others appeared to be handling the news of Dottie’s reemergence better than she could have hoped or asked for. But there was Steve, standing off to the side, still absorbing everything. Peggy had no idea how to assure him of anything when she felt so utterly rudderless herself. Peggy’s scrutiny wasn’t subtle. Steve looked back and seemed to draw himself up, taking in a deep breath that expanded his chest and shoulders.

“Here,” Steve said to the others, pulling a folded sheet of paper from his pocket. He presented it to everyone, and Peggy didn’t have to look to know it was the sketch of Dottie. “Does anyone recognize her?”

Wanda was the first to take it, shaking her head in the negative. She passed the sheet to the others, who all gathered around. Bucky shrugged his indifference to the picture, clearly not recognizing Dottie from anything, but both Natasha and Sam stood frozen around the drawing, staring at it with long, hard looks.

“What?” Peggy said, noticing the lengthy pause. “What is it?”

Natasha spoke first. “That woman,” she said, taking a breath. “That woman was there when I died. When I _first_ died. 1642. I saw her in Yakutsk. She led the charge of the people that killed me.”

Peggy released a harsh breath, and turned away, eyes welling with tears.

Sam was next. “Yeah, uh. It’s hard to say, but she might’ve… she might’ve been there in Waterloo, too, when I died.”

Bucky swore under his breath. “She killed you guys?”

Sam looked hesitant. “It’s possible—”

 _“Yes,”_ Natasha’s voice was strong, assured. There was not a stench of doubt in her words. “I will never forget that woman’s face.”

_You don’t remember me, do you?_

She stared at Steve. Peggy knew the taunt had been working on his last nerves. Steve’s own first death in 1280 had happened in some back alley behind a tavern. A bunch of bullies had gotten the drop on him. From all the times he’d told the story, Peggy knew he’d been defending some woman’s honor. She doubted he could remember the woman’s face after all these years, time eroding the memory into a distant forgettable detail. Could it be? Had Dottie been there from the start? If she had, if they had met before, it would explain why Steve never dreamt of her. The dreams stopped as soon as they met. 

Bucky’s voice spoke up, cutting into Peggy’s running thoughts. “I died of the plague the first time.”

“She was there at two of our initial deaths,” Natasha said, voice whip-sharp and angry. “It’s entirely possible that she was there at yours too, but you just didn’t notice. All things given, she was likely there at Wanda’s.”

Of course, the girl was experimented on by Hydra. Given powers by Hydra.

“How could she possibly do that?” Sam asked. 

For the first time, Peggy’s voice broke into the conversation. “Because,” she said, voice devastated and yet firm, unraveling the mystery, “that scepter gives her powers. It controls people, changes them.” She had seen that with Steve. “It’s likely what gave Wanda her abilities, too. It stands to reason that if she’s had it for some time, she could have gained otherworldly knowledge or powers.”

It would explain how Dottie had planned and executed so many things to such precise detail. That scepter was powerful. If Peggy had any hope of defeating Dottie, she needed to get that weapon away from her. Had Dottie always known about the others? Had she been gifted with foreknowledge? Discovered Steve, discovered the others before they were even immortal? 

What other influence did Dottie have?

Peggy turned to Wanda. “Are you sure you never met her?”

Wanda straightened, but took another look at the drawing. “Yes, as I can be. I would remember such a face.”

Peggy pressed her lips into a straight line. “Do you think you could take her if given the opportunity?”

Wanda stared, debating, thinking over things for a moment. 

Then Wanda nodded, sharply. “I can.”

“What could this crazy lady,” Bucky said, exasperated, “possibly have to gain by going through all this?”

“Hey, man,” Sam returned. “Some people just want to watch the world burn.”

Bucky made a face. “Did you just quote the Joker at me?” 

“Naw, I quoted Alfred talking _about_ the Joker. If you’re gonna call me out, at least know your damn movie trivia.”

Peggy pushed Dottie’s motivation out of her mind with all of the force she could muster. She long ago gave up trying to figure out why Dottie did anything she did. Peggy would need to process everything that had happened today, but right now, she knew she had to keep moving forward. There wasn’t time for tears or grief or guilt. She couldn’t be tender and raw. She needed to focus on the mission at hand.

“The next step is getting Shield’s help,” Peggy said.

“Which means turning yourself in,” Sam said, dubiously. “Are you sure you want to go through with that plan considering you’re mortal now?”

“Oh,” Bucky snapped back, incredulous. “So now being mortal is a problem, is it?”

“Boys,” Peggy cut in, before they could go twelve rounds. She pinched the bridge of her nose. “ _Focus._ We need allies in this. That means we need Shield.”

Natasha nodded. “If you’re turning yourself in, I can have Clint on standby for emergency extraction, if necessary. I don’t want to ask him to burn his entire life within Shield, though.”

“Hopefully it doesn’t come to that,” Peggy allotted, “but we should prep an extraction plan that doesn’t implicate him.”

The wheels were already turning in Natasha’s head. “I’m sure we can come up with something.”

Bucky and Sam, both having been slightly chastened, spared a glare at each other and then stepped closer to Peggy. Good, she needed them to set aside any bickering differences. She had no idea how Sam felt, having flown all the way to Germany for a cure no longer in their possession, but he didn’t seem overly upset about it. His focus, everyone’s focus, seemed to be unified against the common threat. 

“How do you want to do this, boss?” Bucky asked.

Or, Peggy quickly realized, everyone had unified _behind her_.

It had been so long since that had happened. Peggy appreciated the obvious display of support. Next to her, Steve's reaction was similar, if more emotional because he was also battling overprotective instincts. She didn’t know how much time she had left with these people, these beautiful gorgeous people that had been closer to her than her own blood family. For hundreds of years, she’d loved them. Now, after decades of estrangement, she had a fraction of that time left in front of her, and it was a very painful, very poignant realization. 

“We plan this together,” she told everyone. “Very carefully.”

“And I’m coming in with you,” Steve added. She stopped, turning to stare at him, but he just flattened any protests by saying, “You need someone to watch your back, remember?” 

There was no viable defense she had to that, and she knew he was far beyond asking for any permission.

“That is an unnecessary risk," Peggy said, a statement and a complaint both.

Steve shrugged in agreement, but she caught his eyes as he stood there, arms folded over his chest; she could see the furious tangle of emotions in him, half anger and half concern. The pitch of it was so familiar, but events lately had sharpened the blunt edge of it to a razor-fine edge. The tension didn’t diminish as the plans unfolded, blooming out between them until it felt thick and heavy. The others noticed, of course, but didn’t say anything. She doubted there was anything to say. 

There are too many things wrong, too many problems and not enough solutions. If things were normal, if things weren’t so utterly fucked up, she could count on the cool collected nature of Steve’s resolve. She could reach out to him and know his exact immediate response. But things weren’t normal. Peggy was exposed, and Steve was processing that in those slow tense exhales of his, in the rigid set of his shoulders, in those heated looks he tossed her. She could see, from this vantage point, the disaster waiting to happen. Steve Rogers was a man that felt things very, very deeply. As much as he tried to claim otherwise, he was more prone to emotional decisions than her, especially when his people were threatened. When that happened, those rigid lines he would not normally cross – well, they got tossed out the window.

He was always courting heartbreak with her. His confession under Dottie’s compulsion had told her so, in no uncertain terms. She’d devastated him by leaving after their daughter had died. Peggy wished she could avoid hurting him again. She wished, without wanting any of the accompanying steps, that she could bring herself to spare him any further pain. Her life may have been forfeit, but his certainly wasn’t.

She just hoped he wouldn’t do anything reckless.

#


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a brief mention of Peggy cutting her own forearm at the beginning of the chapter, in order to test her mortality. It is not graphically described, but it is there, so I wanted to give a specific warning about self-harm. Sorry.

#

The drugstore was distinctly depressing. She had given Coulson a twenty-four deadline to turn herself over to Shield. Already half of that was gone. Still, the Old Winter Soldiers had a number of errands and supplies to pick up, and Peggy had quietly separated from the others and wandered down the aisle on her own. She had to address the cut on her arm with something more than a makeshift wrapping. The cut was still open and angry, and Peggy gathered she now had to worry about infections on top of everything else. Nearly two thousand years she’d lived without having to learn even basic first aid, and now her cluelessness seemed almost mocking. She stared at the large corridor full of ointments, solutions, and brightly packaged bandages. She felt more than a little out of her element.

Bucky was the first to approach her, staring at the section for wound care with a mirrored sense of bewilderment. He experimentally picked up an antibiotic ointment. Natasha approached from the other side to select a large square burn-treatment kit with a frown. Sam finally came to lodge himself behind Peggy, peering at everything over her shoulders, a furrowed crease between his brow. Sam had a small basket in his hand, full of junk food and toiletries; Natasha and Bucky exchanged a look between them, shrugged, and then started loading up the small basket with package after package of first aid items. They seemed to be picking blindly.

“Can I help you?” Peggy asked, exasperated.

“Do you think you need stitches?” Bucky asked, and then dropped in another two suture kit packages into the basket without waiting for a response. “We’ll get extra.”

Peggy raised an eyebrow. “Planning on stitching me up several times?”

“Hope for the best, plan for the worst,” Natasha offered.

“Also,” Sam added, “Some pain relief medication wouldn’t go amiss, probably.” 

Peggy sighed. Before today, the cut on her forearm wouldn’t have even merited a second thought. Now it was a herald of things to come. Not for the first time, she regretted the decision to take the knife to her own skin, but she’d needed to know at the time. She’d needed to know if her healing abilities had truly gone away. She’d been unmindful of the strength or the pressure of the blade as she had directed it across her skin. She’d expected the pain; she hadn’t expected the tenderness or stinging that had accompanied it afterwards. But Peggy had never done anything by half-measures.

Down the aisle, at the end, Steve stood silent while the group crowded around Peggy and argued over purchasing options in loud boisterous voices, as if first aid supplies needed debate. He caught her eye, standing motionless with his hands shoved in his pockets, and Peggy felt the specter of his loneliness like it was a living, breathing demon wrapped around his shoulders. She tried to smile back at him, tried to give him the illusion of some reassuring gesture but it probably came out as more of a grimace. Everything felt tension-filled, and she knew she had to have a serious talk with Steve. She wasn’t looking forward to it. 

“Oh, you lot are completely hopeless,” Wanda said, reproachful, from behind. But she was exasperated at Bucky, Nat, and Sam; Wanda threw Peggy a pitying look, grabbing a few items out of Sam’s basket quickly and tugged at Peggy’s elbow. “Come on, let’s get this taken care of. The clerk is letting us use the storage room.”

Wanda led Peggy to the back wall, and she nodded her thanks at the store clerk who let them into a small cleaning supply closet. The brightly lit room was filled with two bulky, metal industrial racks side by side, sanitization supplies and some other odd-end cleaning equipment that littered the ground. It was a small room, but it provided private space. Wanda tore open a package and set out several items on the rack – alcohol swabs, butterfly bandages, gauze, tape. They hadn’t paid for the items yet, but then again, Peggy had no idea what sort of arrangement Wanda had with the clerk.

“Where’d you learn to do this?” Peggy asked, rolling up her sleeve.

“It’s not that impressive,” Wanda answered dryly, removing the makeshift bandage on Peggy’s forearm. She grimaced at the mess she found underneath. “Besides, my brother was a bit of a daredevil.”

Wanda offered a lopsided smile – weak, but real. Until that moment, they seemingly had a tacit mutual agreement not to speak of Wanda’s family, or, really, anything from before Wanda had been taken by Hydra. Peggy chose to take it as a positive sign that Wanda had offered the tidbit on her own.

“So, you played nurse?” Peggy asked, tentatively.

“If only to avoid getting my parents involved. They both thought we rough-housed too much.” Wanda’s smile turned sheepish, perhaps an admittance of guilt on that front. She started cleaning up the wound, and it stung a surprising amount. “Pietro and I are – _were_ – always getting into trouble.”

Peggy breathed through the stinging, and focused on the distraction. “And you were always cleaning up the messes." 

It wasn’t a question. Peggy guessed that without asking.

Wanda looked away. “I’m younger by twelve minutes, but you wouldn’t think it to look at us. He was always immature, but – he’s family, y’know? I would do anything for family.” 

Peggy paused, staring at Wanda as the meaning set in, struck by how the admission might have expanded in recent times to include the Winter Soldiers and perhaps even herself. Peggy wanted to ask more. She wanted to ask about Wanda’s parents, but something told her to tread more carefully than that. She studied the young girl’s face as she began tending to the wound. Peggy sometimes forgot, in all the madness that had befallen lately, that Wanda was so incredibly new to this immortal life. That she’d had a family, a brother who’d only recently died at the hands of Hydra. Wanda carried her grief and sadness so close to the chest that it hardly ever came to the surface. Despite being so painfully youthful at times, Wanda was managing to navigate everything thrown at her with a maturity that belied wisdom beyond her age. 

“You might need stitches,” Wanda said, while she applied butterfly bandages to the wound, “but these should do for now. Try not to agitate it too much. Keep it dry.”

Peggy nodded. “Thank you. I’m not used to… having to do any of this.”

Wanda studied her quietly. “You know I do have some recent experience with being a mortal. Perhaps we can swap advice?”

“Perhaps,” Peggy allotted, smiling at the younger girl. “The first rule to being an immortal is knowing who to trust. I imagine that’s still the same when one’s mortal.”

Wanda shook her head, amused. “The way you talk, sometimes. The way all of you do. It’s like something out of an old movie.”

“We all have some habits and vices that die hard.”

Wanda laughed a little, almost embarrassed. “You realize the guys always open the doors for us? Bucky once pulled out a chair for me. This behavior from the same men I watched play _Call of Duty_ for six hours straight. It’s utterly ridiculous and charming.”

Peggy knew that, of course, but she hadn’t particularly _noted_ it. It was old remainders of a bygone era of chivalry, but the boys had never stopped doing the smaller things. On Steve, it was perhaps expected. On Bucky or Sam, perhaps a touch more surprising, but not really. They were all gentlemen, when it came down to it. The idea that even in the modern world, they didn’t break some old habits was a firm comfort to Peggy.

Any further conversation was cut short by the knock at the door. Steve popped his head in, frowning at Peggy’s forearm, before lifting his eyes to Wanda. “The clerk needs us to pay for the supplies,” he told her. 

Wanda nodded. She handed him the gauze and tape, directing him to finish up, while she gathered up the boxes and left. Steve let himself further into the room, frown etched heavily on his face as he went about taping the gauze over the bandaged wound. 

“It’s all right, it doesn’t even hurt,” Peggy told him, embarrassed that such a small wound was getting so much attention.

But Steve only frowned harder at her lie, because it _did_ hurt, even just a little. She’d never admit to it, just like she’d never admit to the sore knee from getting knocked to the ground in the fight with Dottie that had stiffened up overnight.

Finally, the silence became too much. “Steve, say something.”

“What do you want me to say, Peggy?”

“Something, anything. You’ve barely said a word all day.”

She was tired, but so was he, and it showed on his face. The weight of the day had taken its toll and he looked absolutely wrecked by it. Steve still refused to say a thing, but they were standing so close together that she could feel the puff of his breath at her temple. She blinked rapidly, taking in a deep breath, refusing to let her emotions overwhelm her in a broom closet. His lips were pursed in a frown, eyebrows pinched together. Peggy reached up, pressing her palm against the edge of his jaw, hoping to soften some of the rough edges. 

“What are you thinking about?” she asked him. “Talk to me, my darling.”

“You took the cure,” he said, taking a slow inhale, eyes meeting hers, “to save my life.”

She didn’t flinch, but it was a near thing. Staring at Steve’s face was like staring at a wounded animal. She didn’t want to hold his gaze, but she forced herself to. Instead of an immediate answer, she reached for his hands. “You would have done the same had the situation been reversed.”

She placed a gentle kiss to his knuckles. When she first dreamt of Steve, that very first night in 1280, all those ages and eons ago, the first thing she remembered about this unknown man was his hands. Strong, powerful, the subtle beauty of his long fingers, the graceful lines. As time passed and she continued to dream about him over the next sixteen years, all the while searching for him across the great landscape of the world, she came to realize that he was an artist. It made sense. He had such wonderful hands. In truth, Peggy didn’t think that they would ever cease to amaze her.

So when one of those hands of his tugged her chin up gently, she went willingly into his embrace as he kissed her. They needed to talk. She knew that. They needed to discuss so many things, but she was just as aware of how his strong hands carefully avoided her bandaged arm, how he held her delicately like she was made of cut-glass; that simply wouldn’t do, she thought. She may have been mortal, but Peggy had never been fragile and she refused to be treated as such. She nipped aggressively at his lips, biting hard once enough to feel him shudder. Then he tightened his grip around her waist, like a drowning man clutching at a life preserver, pulling her against him. Her hands wrapped around his neck, and the flavor of the kiss deepened and sharpened both. 

It started out innocent and quickly got messy. There was no gap between their bodies, barely any air in their lungs. It was always like a switch with them, something that could be flipped at a moment’s notice. When they kissed, Peggy felt like they were shielded away from the rest of the world like it didn’t exist. When she finally pulled away, there were both panting heavily.

She wrapped her arm around Steve’s neck, keeping him close enough to whisper. “Tell me…” She nipped at his earlobe once, loving the way he groaned. “…that you’ve picked up a box of condoms.” 

They stopped and stood facing each other, close and touching, but not nearly as much as Peggy wanted. “We’re at a drugstore, Peg. What do you think?”

He went back to kissing her before she could come up with any cheeky response. His hands roamed over her shoulders, skimming down her backside to cup her rear end. It went on long enough that there was a sharp knock at the door, and Steve pulled back with her lipstick smeared on his mouth.

“Whatever you two are doing in there,” Bucky called out, through the door, “knock it off. We gotta get moving.”

Steve groaned. “Fuck off, Buck.”

They both heard Bucky’s answering chuckle as he walked away.

#

Peggy and Steve both emerged minutes later, a little more presentable but far from satisfied. They ignored the knowing looks of the others, even the rather appalled look on Wanda’s face. After hours of maddening tension, she had discovered an avenue of release and Peggy wanted nothing but to take further refuge in it, even if it neatly sidestepped their clear issues. 

Still, the Old Winter Soldiers had a series of errands in front of them. The first had been to hit the local gym, where Peggy and Steve took advantage of the showers to clean up and change. The others picked up more supplies, including a generator for the Mausoleum and some additional burner phones and equipment.

After that, the group decided to scarf down bad Chinese food and plot their options around a long table. Peggy had noted, with some amusement, that the boys did indeed still wait for the women to sit first at the dinner table before seating themselves. It was such an old-fashioned thing, almost imperceptible if one wasn’t actively looking for it. It was perhaps so ingrained in their behavior that Peggy hardly even noticed it anymore, but it warmed her heart and she shared a secret smile with Wanda about it. 

Still, old fashioned or not, there was some behaviors at the table that did not quite meet the same line of decorum. 

When Steve started to act taciturn again, glowering into his menu across from her, Peggy decided to take matters into her own hands. She slipped her heel off one foot and stretched her leg underneath the table, and set her foot against his inner thigh. That got Steve’s abrupt attention, almost startling him into upsetting the table. She didn’t acknowledge the moment, sipping quietly from her water and staring down at the menu. For the rest of the meal, whenever he looked close to a brooding thought, she made sure to keep his attention by applying pressure with her foot. He could have moved it, if he wanted. He could have easily pushed her foot away. He didn’t. It was effectively distracting enough that when the check had been paid and everyone else rose to leave, Steve needed to hang back a few minutes before he could follow without the evidence of a tented trouser. Peggy was rather shameless about it, neither acknowledging the problem nor keeping him company while he waited for his _little problem_ to die down.

The others didn’t say anything leaving the restaurant, but Peggy knew better than to think that meant they didn’t notice. When they finally made it back to the underground network beneath Bucky’s family mausoleum, she rather thought everyone knew Steve and Peggy wanted their privacy. 

But first, there needed to be the final arrangements and confirmations.

“Clint just called,” Natasha announced. “He says Fury is personally flying in to be there for your handover. They’re planning for all contingencies.”

Peggy kept her face a careful blank mask, because she knew that meant they were preparing for her to be openly hostile. She could have been flip about it and said she was glad her reputation and career were garnering such attention. The truth, however, was that it stung that her former colleagues and friends viewed Peggy as a dangerous criminal now. Nothing more.

“No one is expecting Steve,” Natasha added, as an afterthought.

Peggy sighed. She still didn’t agree with Steve’s decision to come in with her, but she knew better than to argue.

“I know both Coulson and Fury,” Peggy said. “If we haven’t convinced them within forty-eight hours, we’re not going to convince them at all. So, if you don’t hear from us within two days, assume that Steve and I are both staying in custody involuntarily.”

“Then Plan B?” Natasha said.

Peggy nodded. “Plan B.”

After that, they had their option. The discussion was flung wide enough that it covered three potential locations for a further safehouse. By unspoken agreement, the mausoleum would be considered burned. The best options, they all agreed, were large enough cities to get lost within. They would use no roads with tolls. No hotels with security cameras. No previously used IDs. Sam was already working on a full new set of forgeries. The conversation circled back around to final selections, and it was Steve that made the ultimate call on the safehouse location. 

“Brompton Road in London,” Steve said. “If we can, we’ll stay there a few days.”

“Brompton?” Wanda questioned.

It was Sam that explained it to her. Brompton Road was an abandoned tube station in the London’s subway system. During World War II, it had been converted into service as a Ministry of Defence site with the upper levels obligingly accommodating the SSR command center, Shield’s predecessor. After that, it had never resumed as a working tube station, the standard entrances covered up, the modern brick façade masking any reminder of it. It was also centrally located enough that they could disappear into thick public crowds, if need arose; they could hop into any of the nearby working stations and escape a dozen different ways, spill out at nearly any point in the city.

Peggy paused. It was a good place. A solid idea. Still Peggy swallowed her instinctual distaste. Despite maintaining the accent, she had not been to London in years. She’d lost the taste for the city ever since they’d buried Sarah there. But everyone nodded in agreement, the matter resolved.

Then Peggy found herself in an uncomfortable situation. She had not wanted to address the obvious elephant in the room, but she felt she had to. She was walking into an unknown but hostile situation, and she was mortal now. The rules of the game were far different than any they had previously played by.

“It appears,” Peggy said, at last, “that we are walking into a precarious situation tonight. I’d be lying if I said I had any idea of how it will turn out. But I do know this. It’s been a while since I’ve had you all watching my back.” She smiled, discovering the sentiment felt a bit like she was coming home. She hoped her general demeanor could convey that, because she found she could not put it adequately into words. “If I don’t make it out of there, for whatever reason, I need you all to know—”

The scrape of Steve’s chair abruptly being pulled back stopped her. She looked over her shoulder, but Steve was already storming out of the room; she only caught sight of his back as he turned the corner and disappeared.

For a moment, silence reigned. 

Then Natasha offered, softly, “He’s never liked goodbyes.”

#

Steve found a cheap bottle of rum that Sam had brought from the drugstore, and he sat it down on the table in front of him. He didn't know what Peggy and others talked about after he left, though he did have some clue. He didn’t want to hear any of it. Peggy talking about the possibility of her death, that she might not make it out of the next few days alive, made Steve feel like the walls were closing in all around him. He poured himself glasses of rum and drank it in quick succession. 

He heard her coming well in advance, and tried to get himself under control, hoping Peggy didn’t hear the telling noises he had been making, sharp air whistling past the constricted muscles of his throat. He fought for composure, blinking back the sheen in his eyes; he thought he’d managed to wipe enough of the misery off his face before she arrived. He made sure to sit down with his back to her. On the table next to him, there was the plastic bag full of cheap drugstore supplies and his leather-worn sketchbooks filled with pages and pages of the Old World. He opened the book, looking through it.

Peggy closed the door behind her and crossed the room. He didn’t meet her eyes, but he knew she had picked up the bottle of rum and made a disapproving noise. They both had seen grief make too many people turn inward, poison-filled, seen people turn reckless because of it. Steve had been many things, but he’d never been an alcoholic. He hoped he would never irrevocably fall down that hole of grief and despair, but – and he said this without a single spark of doubt or hesitation – her death might be the one thing to push him over. 

Then his eyes fell to a bottle of wine in her other hand. Of course, there was a cellar of the stuff around the bend, a vintage of wines from all different centuries, some older than nations. She pulled the rum away and set it aside, and then opened the bottle of wine. She took an experimental sniff, nose discerning before she found an acceptable aroma. She poured herself a few thimble fulls into the glass, and took an experimental swig, savoring the flavor of a wine that connoisseurs would have salivated over. Then she poured out two glasses, and held one up for him. 

Steve took it, because getting shitfaced drunk was probably a good way to close out the miserable day, and it didn’t matter if he did it on rum or wine. If Peggy preferred wine, he would oblige. 

After he gulped down the wine, he announced, “I want to draw you.”

Her eyes landed on the sketchbook, flipping through a few pages idly, bypassing old pictures of her in several reposes with soft, flattering looks. When she came to the end of the book, it only had a handful of remaining blank pages left. She pressed down on the spine to keep it open. 

“Do you want to talk about what's bothering you?” she asked.

He grimaced, because all they had done today was talk. Instead he reached for her, palms sliding around her hips, tugging her closer so that she stood in between his parted legs. His fingers dipped underneath the waistband of her leggings. He reached for her pale skin, finding the bump in her defined hipbone, tracing a small circling pattern over and over again. He could almost hypnotize himself with the movement.

“What do you want, Steve?”

At first he couldn’t think beyond the terms of _you._ Anyway, anyhow, always. Just _you._

“What is it that you want?” Peggy pressed him, softly.

He wanted to draw her. He wanted to fuck her. He wanted to hold her close and make her come, over and over again. 

He decided on all three in close quick succession.

“Take off your clothes,” he told her.

She gave him a look, head tilted, almost impish. “We don’t have that much time, Steve. Only a few hours before—”

“I’ll be good,” he promised.

Peggy looked dubious, but seemed to be in an indulging mood. Slowly, she started unbuttoning her shirt, shrugging her blouse off her shoulders and draping it over the stool. One strap of her bra slid off her shoulders and her fingers hooked under the material and gradually tugged it down past her sternum, exposing her breasts. She took it off, her nipples hardening against the splash of cool air. Just the prior morning, he’d watched her get dressed with rapt attention, watched her plait her hair and apply her makeup, and even then, half asleep while he watched her, his fingers had been itching to draw her. She bent at the waist, skimming the leggings and underwear down her legs. 

When she was naked, she asked, “And how do you want me?”

There were so many ways he could answer that. After a moment of debate, he moved to the bed, lying back down, sketchbook and pencil in his hands. He flattened the book open on his stomach, gesturing for Peggy to straddle his lap. 

She arched an eyebrow at him. “Really?”

“I want to get you exactly right,” he said. “Whenever I do it from memory, there’s always something off.”

“I’ve seen your sketches plenty. They never seem off to me.”

“You don’t get the same view I do,” he replied, with a smile.

It was the smile, he knew, that made Peggy give in. When she climbed onto his lap, she did it slowly, getting herself comfortable, hips and legs bracketing his. He was already growing hard just from her settling on top of him, but he really _did_ want to draw her. The light was a bit of an issue. There was only one lamp against the far wall, and it threw the light at an odd angle, highlighting the left side of her body more than the right, flinging her shadow against the opposing wall. 

“So, any particular pose?” 

“Just keep your eyes open,” he told her. “I want you looking at me the entire time.” 

“Easy enough, but you could give me something to look at, too.” She grinned down at him, a little petulantly. “It’s rather dull just sitting here.”

His eyes lifted to hers. “What would you like?”

“Your shirt, at least, off.”

He raised an eyebrow and decided to oblige her. But rising up to remove his shirt ended up jostling Peggy, putting more pressure on his groin. Steve groaned, coming up chest to chest with her in his lap, lips a short distance away from his; if he started kissing her, he knew he wouldn’t stop. She smiled, reading his thoughts, and her fingers found the hemline of his shirt and helped him tug it up and off. She shoved him flat back against the cot afterwards, and he grinned up at her while she handed him his book again. He hoped Peggy appreciated his level of restraint and self-control, considering the evidence of him was only all too apparent pressed against her.

He started tracing the rough outline of her first, head and body, quick scratches on the paper with the barest hints of a form, almost like a ghost.

“You will hurry up, won’t you?” she pressed. “I have plans of my own to put into effect.”

“Yeah?” he replied, a small smile tugging at his lips. “What plans are those?”

As if to demonstrate, she ground herself against him, causing Steve to inhale sharply and choke on the exhale. Her whole body was brought into the act as she settled chest to chest and slid her body against the length of him. Steve gave a piercing groan and one hand found her ass again, grabbing a palmful, squeezing both in encouragement and warning.

“Behave,” he told her.

Instead she rocked her hips against his and Steve’s breath hitched and broke off with a strangled moan. Their bodies were separated only by his boxers and a pair of pants, and the stroke of her against his erection, quick and arousing, played havoc with his control. She rocked her hips again and the friction built as Peggy set a slow sway, hips rotating, grinding. The building, eclipsing desire was distracting, because as she rocked, Steve’s breathing came out more and more broken, almost as heavy as hers.

 _“Peggy,”_ he pleaded, almost wrecked.

Peggy sighed heavily and pulled herself upright again. She returned to her former posture, hands falling at her sides, straddling him. She looked down at him, trying to affect a look of _Bambi-like_ innocence which was made all the more ridiculous by her nudity and general demeanor. 

Taking a breath, Steve picked up his pencil again and finally set it to the paper with a sense of determination and concentration. He wanted this done right, lasting for preservation sake, capturing her exactly like he saw her in these moments. He started filling in darker marks around the hollow of her throat, the curve of her jawline, the sharp outline of her shoulders against a shadowy backdrop; spreading up and out, first, capturing the framework of her upper body, then back down again to the lower region. He didn’t fill out her facial features yet, or anything in too much detail, because that required more concentration and time. 

When he was done with that, he moved on to the slope of her breasts, a favorite feature of his, drawing them full and heavy. 

Peggy shifted forward, watching him pay more attention to the sketch of her tits than he had to any other part yet, and rolled her eyes. “You are ridiculous, and entirely male.”

“It’s called art, sweetheart.”

Peggy snorted, rather inelegantly. “Does that mean you’ll let others see it? Art is meant to be shared.”

Like hell he would let anyone else see this. This was meant for his eyes only.

Meanwhile her hands wandered over his abs, tracking up and down idly along the planes of his muscles, a fingertip painted in red tracing circles. The cut and definition of his muscles seemed to endlessly fascinate her in the same way her chest endlessly fascinated him, although for entirely different features.

He felt her other hand undo his belt buckle.

“Stop it,” Steve chided. “Stop trying to distract me.”

“Oh, I’m a distraction now? I thought I was the muse?”

He continued on with sketching, ignoring her laughter, intent to get the details right; the narrow waist that flared out at the hips, her bellybutton, and then the triangle of shadows further below. Steve barely paid attention to any part of himself within eyesight, ignoring his tented pants, only roughly sketching his thighs trapped by the frame of hers. He mainly concentrated on drawing her muscles, toned and smooth, only drawing himself in the points of contact that he made with her.

When he was satisfied with that, he went back up to drawing her face. Except some lengthy time must have passed because his model looked bored and a little exasperated. It obviously wasn’t the look he wanted captured for this drawing. Clearly, she needed inspiration as much as he did. So he dropped the pencil, and she made a little sharp, surprised noise when he rubbed his thumb against her clit; Steve almost missed it, the quiet gasp because he’d been watching for how her mouth fell open, the exact slant and slope of her jaw. Her thighs clenched around his hand as he moved the pad of his thumb roughly against her, finding her soaked. It wouldn’t take much at all for him to push her to the edge. 

Her lips parted in a moan, pale and pink, and she lifted a little on her knees, letting his fingers slip underneath so he could push inside her. She buckled forward when he curled a knuckle and hit a sweet spot, lips finding his in a sloppy kiss; for a few moments he got lost to it, to kissing her while pushing a second and then third finger inside of her, thumb on her clit, intent on making her feel good rather than focusing on anything else. He kissed her with the hot, slow slide of his tongue.

She pulled back, still riding his hand, but when her eyes slipped shut, he abruptly stopped. “No, no, eyes open. I want you looking at me.”

She made a noise of distress, but did as instructed, locking her gaze with him – and he rewarded her by resuming to thrust into her slippery heat. A river of expressions raced across her face, eyes dilated, looking drunk on the feel of him, a kiss-bruised mouth. He’d left whisker-burns on her, and he wanted to capture that all in his sketch. His eyes couldn’t stop moving over her face, desperate to commit every detail to memory as he brought her close to the edge, twice, only to back down. 

The third time, he was fairly sure she would have threatened violence if he didn’t see her over. He could feel her orgasm build and build, a looming thing he could recognize just from the expression on her face, if not the way her muscles tightened around his fingers. She came keening, body curling inward around his fingers.

He had to shake his aching hand out afterwards, while she recovered. It was his drawing hand too, but he wouldn’t have traded the feeling for all the world. 

She dropped her forehead against his neck. “Are you done sketching yet?” she asked, panting heavily.

“How are you complaining after all that?” 

She made a noise of annoyance. “I want more than just your hand, Steve. Or were the condoms we bought earlier just for show?”

“I’m almost finished, just give me a few minutes.”

She relented, very reluctantly, with a very put-upon sigh. Steve didn’t know why she was the one complaining so much when he was the one nearly straining the seams of his pants. Still, the thrill of drawing Peggy like this suddenly felt less important than it had minutes ago. He took a deep breath, forcing himself to slow down, to capture the details he’d seen on her face just right. By the time he’d traced the dark smudges of her eyelashes, the wasps of hair framing her face, capturing the details of her face moments before her orgasm hit – well, to Steve it felt like mere minutes had ticked by, but judging by Peggy's expression it may have been longer.

When he finally presented his work for Peggy to inspect, she took the book in her hands, studying it for a long beat. Despite her impatience up till this point, he could tell she was flattered by the sketch because it had caught her in a decadent moment that was both evocative and beautiful. She was framed just like how the light had captured her, her left side in the spotlight, her shadows hitting the wall. Her mouth was caught open and panting, an expression of ecstasy blooming across her features. Her eyes were hooded, dripping with want. She looked wild, debauched, but somehow glorious in the way she was becoming undone. She was always so goddamn beautiful like that.

“That’s how I see you,” he told her.

Her cheeks flushed, and it pleased him that she was at a loss for words. Slowly, she set the book down carefully on the table beside the cot, stretching alongside him. She grabbed a tin-foiled condom too, from the plastic bag. His hands instinctively caught her around the waist, steadying her as she stretched. When she started to push his pants and boxers down his hips, he abetted her actions by lifting his hips and then kissing her. It was slow, unhurried at first, and he closed his eyes. He only heard the wrapper crinkle, and felt the pressure of Peggy’s fingers around him as she rolled on the condom.

When he pressed his length into the valley between her cheeks, she shifted back. He took hold of her and began to rock her hips, forward and back, guiding her to grind shallowly against him. She sighed as his hands trailed over her backside, then her hips, strumming, fingertips pressing white marks into her skin.

Reaching down, she took him in hand, stroking lightly. “Peg,” he said tightly, “don’t tease.” 

Peggy nodded, understanding that all the delayed gratification would likely mean swift gratification now. So she settled on top of him and sank down onto his shaft, slowly. Steve’s breath hitched as the penetration extended, feeling his length and width fill Peggy until she was fully seated. When he was buried deep inside of her, she rested her hands against his chest, overwhelmed and immobile for a second.

 _“Peggy,”_ Steve whispered, her name sounding broken, and bucked up against her hard.

She moaned and pushed down with her hips, falling easily into a rhythm. She fucked him slow and steady, and he found he needed that tonight. Her hands planted against his chest and rocked with her entire body as she moved herself on his cock at her own leisure. 

Steve’s eyes screwed shut, his labored breathing growing heavier. She worked his body, adjusting her own to draw out choked gasps from him whenever she found a particular angle he liked. His hands settled on either sides of her hip, encouraging her, guiding her movement with fingers pressing into skin so hard there were going to be marks left. Steve met her in the middle, thrusting steadily, using her hips as a handle to add a little friction to the movement. 

At some point her hands wrapped around his wrists, pinning them just above his shoulders; she used the extra leverage to rock up and down on his cock, pleasing herself just as she liked. Peggy slanted her body, her hips rocked, and then she came, more quickly than he had intended. She rode the wave of pleasure, muscles spasming and fluttering around him, little tremors of ecstasy jolting him and – that was it for him, he was _done,_ her spasms pushing him over the edge too. He shuddered and moaned her name, and he could barely hear anything over his own pulse in his ears, but it was somehow outmatched by her half-sobs and ragged breathing.

Steve felt limp and boneless, afterwards. Slowly, he pulled out of her and disposed of the condom. They drank another glass or two of the wine as well. But after that, he pulled her back on top of him again, and he wanted to fall sleep with her like that, the exchange of their chests – her every breath in matched by his every breath out. They lay together, fingertips trailing over sweat slicked skin. 

“Steve,” she whispered, almost reluctantly. “We need to talk.”

“Go to sleep, Peg. We’ve got another hour or two before we need to get ready for the meet. You need the rest.”

She sighed heavily. “You do realize,” Peggy offered into the hush, and he _knew_ what was coming, “that I’ve been told that my ability to avoid talking about things is not my most attractive feature. So, the fact that I’m here, now, the one broaching this subject… well, I’d like it pointed out for posterity's sake.”

She was trying to lighten the mood, and Steve wasn’t interested. A part of him knew she’d planned this; he was always more pliant to her after sex. 

“What do you want to talk about, Peg?” he challenged, sounding hollow even to his own ears. “The fact that you gave up control over the thing most important in your life, and now you’re...”

Dying with every breath she took. 

All done, to save _his_ life.

“Control was never the most important thing in my life,” she said.

He grunted in disagreement. “It’s damn near the top.”

“You,” she said. “You’re the most important thing in my life, Steve. Even when you weren’t there, I still felt your presence. The voice of my better angels. And believe it or not, the decision to take the cure was ultimately in my hands to decline. As horrible as the ultimatum was, I still had my choice. Respect my decision, Steve. I damn-well think you’re worth it.”

He said nothing at first, clenching his hands into fists, feeling impotent fury and grief wage war inside him. Any post-coital bliss had depleted in a blink, and he was just angry again. “When we go after Dottie,” he said, “I’m not going to stop. I’m not going to stop until she’s—”

“I know,” Peggy cut in. “I won’t ask you to hold back. I won’t be holding back myself.”

“You sure?” he asked, and not out of misplaced jealousy. This was larger than that. “Can you do it, Peg? Do what’s necessary.”

“I can,” she told him. He found her looking down at him, jaw clenched with determination. “I love you. I made the mistake once of walking away from you. I have no intentions of doing that again. Dottie won’t get me without one hell of a fight.”

But Peggy could be killed now. 

He’d seen her die more times than any man should see his lover die, more times than he had ever dared to count, but now he felt like he knew true torture. Peggy’s life could end in the blink of an eye. A ticking timebomb with the clock running down, and he didn’t know how to handle that. He wasn’t built to handle that.

She took a steadying breath. “I know I never gave you any comfort when Sarah died—” he looked up, shocked that she was even bringing up their daughter’s name. She paused, took another breath, and continued, “But you deserve better than that.”

It was too much, Peggy invoking their daughter’s name on top of everything else. She reached out to him, fingers brushing the stubble on his jawline, and his eyes slipped shut because they suddenly felt glassy. Later on, he wasn’t sure if she’d moved to him or if he’d roughly pulled her down, but suddenly her arms were wrapped around him tightly as he buried his face in her chest. And he allowed himself to break down for the first time in so many years that he’d lost all measure of count. 

He didn’t recall much from the days after their daughter had died. He was pretty sure it was only because Sam and Bucky were keeping an eye on him that he’d managed not to fall down a deep, dark hole. Natasha had left, trying in futility to track down Peggy – but when Peggy had disappeared, she’d gone up like smoke. But the war was still on, and soon his grief had plenty of targets. He busied herself with battles and sieges, and he felt like a ghost through all of it. 

He knew, of course, that Peggy had suffered just as much, if not more, during those days. He could only imagine the hell she had put herself through, but they hadn’t had this, this moment of solace, this simple moment of holding each other. It was small, but _vital_. As important as a single sip of water was to a dying man. It didn’t erase the past, but it wasn’t about some sort of penance. He didn't want penance. There was comfort in Peggy’s arms that he knew he would never find anywhere else in the world.

Afterwards, he had no idea how long after, she said, rather quietly, “I’m sorry that I didn’t find you earlier. But I have always believed that everything happens for a reason, Steve. There are no coincidences, and Erskine was working on two serums. A cure for immortality and a Super Soldier Serum. One solution for Dottie, and the other for me.”

He nodded, even though Erskine hadn’t mentioned _anything_ about perfecting the Super Soldier Serum; he’d only finalized the cure. From what he understood of the situation, the Super Soldier Serum hadn't been tested on anyone since the disastrous experiment with Dr. Bruce Banner. But he knew Peggy had to keep faith. He wasn’t sure he bought into that theory, that things could be so easily solved and resolved. He didn’t feel compelled to argue. Instead, that impotent grief drained away from him, like filth washing away after a storm. He knew what measures he had to take. He knew, now, what he had to do. She wouldn't like it, but just like he had to respect her choice, she would have to respect _his._

“I love you,” he said softly.

She pressed a hand gently against his jaw. “I love you, too.”

#

“Well, you look like hell, Rogers,” Fury greeted, while Coulson came to stand behind him. “I do hope you and Carter have a good story to tell.”

“How about one that could help you break Hydra?” Peggy said. “I’m hoping what I have to say might earn a little trust.”

Fury only gave a wry smile. “The last time I trusted someone, I lost an eye.”

But he gestured for both Peggy and Steve to follow him up the ramp of the quinjet, and Steve knew the invitation would be enforced by violence if necessary. Peggy and Steve exchanged a look, and walked up the ramp without a word. Behind them, a trail of armed Shield agents followed, flanked by Fury and Coulson. Steve kept pace with Peggy and marched straight into the lion's den.

#

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fury, you wonderful one-eyed bastard, a cat did that.


End file.
